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The Spiritual Exodus 



Then opened He their mind, that they might understand 
the Scriptures. Luke xxiv. 45. 



BY 

Theodore F. Wright, Ph. D. 



boston : 

MASSACHUSETTS NEW-CHURCH UNION 

16 Arlington Street 

1905 






16 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

DEC 30 1905 

Copyright Entry 

CLASS ex. *Xc. No. 

I XI XI 
COPY B. 



Copyright igoj 
By Theodore F. Wright 



} 









V 



Wm. B. Libby, Printer 

l6 ARLINGTON ST. BOSTON 



PREFACE. 



In preparing these studies of the Book of 
Exodus the writer has made use, for the lit- 
eral meaning, of the recent researches of archae- 
ologists and exegetes, and, for the spiritual 
meaning, of the interpretation given in the 
."Arcana Coelestia," anonymously published in 
London in the years 1749 to 1756, and known 
to have been w r ritten by Emanuel Swedenborg, 
whose training as a man of science qualified 
him to study rationally the symbolism of Holy 
Scripture, which Philo Judaeus, Origen, Boehme 
and other good men had sought to explain, 
but without the necessary scientific prepara- 
tion, and therefore with a result which was 
as alchemy to chemistry or as astrology to 
astronomy. 

Technical terms have been avoided. The 
full text is not quoted, but extracts, in italics, 
are made a part of the commentary. The 

(iii) 



IV PREFACE. 



maps and plans found in the best Teachers' 
Bibles make their insertion here unnecessary. 

The potency of revelation is not in its his- 
torical setting, but in the application to present 
religious experience of history, prophecy, para- 
able and psalm ; and now, as on the first 
Easterday, it is necessary that the Lord Jesus 
Christ open the mind to understand the Script- 
ures. 1 The prayer of all who would follow 
Him in the spiritual Exodus must be, " Open 
Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous 
things out of Thy law." 2 

T. F. W. 

Cambridge, Mass. 



1 Luke xxiv. 45. 2 Psalm cxix. 18. 



CONTENTS. 





PAGE 


Trinities ...... 


I 


The Trinity of Bible Lands . 


3 


Egypt . . . ; . . 


4 


Assyria ...... 


7 


Israel ....... 


10 


Illustrations of this Order 


T 3 


Isaiah xix., 23-25 .... 


i7 


Egyptian Oppression, i.,,1-14 


20 


Murderous Plots, i., 15-22 


28 


Birth of Moses, ii., 1, 2 


36 


Moses Saved, ii., 3-10 


3§ 


The Man Moses, ii., n-i4a . 


46 


Flight to Midian, ii., 14b 


5 1 


The Shepherd, ii., 15-25 . 


54 


Called of God, iii. . 


62 


Signs of the Call, iv., 1-9 . 


7i 


Moses' Lack of Words, iv., 10-12 


75 


Aaron's Part, iv., 13-17 . . . . 


79 


From Midian to Egypt, iv. 18-31 


82 


Demand and Refusal, v., 1-3 


90 



VI 



CONTENTS. 



Burdens Increased, v., 4-T9 . 
Despair of Israel, v., 20-23 
God's Promise Renewed, vi., 1-13 
His Chosen Men, vi., 14-30 
Divine Persistence, vii., 1-7 
Warning Rejected, vii., 8-13 
Nature of the Plagues, vii., 14 
Water made Blood, vii., 15-25 
The Frogs, viii., 1-15 
The Lice, viii., 16-19 
The Flies, viii., 20-32 
The Murrain, ix., 1-7 
The Boils, ix., 8-12 
The Hail, ix., 13-35 
The Locusts, x., 1-20 
The Darkness, x., 21-29 
The Firstborn Slain, xi. 
The Passover, xii., 1-28 
Pharaoh Submits, xii., 29-33 
On the March, xii., 34-51 
Sacred Firstborn, xiii., 1-16 
Succoth to Etham, xiii., 17-22 
Turning Back, xiv., 1-4 
Pursuit by Kgypt, xiv., 5-9 



93 
98 

100 

103 

106 

109 

112 

114 

116 

119 

120 

123 

123 

124 

126 

127 

130 

134 

141 

*43 

149 

J 5 2 
i57 
160 



CONTENTS. 



Vll 



Taught to Trust, xiv., 10-18 . 
Egypt Engulfed, xiv., 19-31 . 
Song of Triumph, xv., 1-2 1 
At Marah, xv., 22-26 
Rest at Elim, xv., 27 
Fed with Manna, xvi. 
Massah and Meribah, xvii., 1-7 
War in Rephidim, xvii., 8-16 
Visit of Midianites, xviii. 
Before the Mount, xix. . 
The Decalogue, xx., 1-17 
Law of the Altar, xx., 18—26 
Law of Servants, xxi., 1-11 
Law of Retaliation, xxi., 12-36 
Other Laws, xxii. . 
Justice for All, xxiii., 1-13 
Annual Feasts, xxiii., 14-19 . 
Promises Renewed, xxiii., 20-33 
The Written Covenant, xxiv., 1-8 
In the Mount, xxiv., 9-18 
Offerings of Israel, xxv., 1-9 
Ark and Mercy-Seat, xxv., 10-22 
Table for Bread, xxv., 23-30 
The Lamp, xxv., 31-40 . 



162 

165 

170 
171 

176 

177 
189 

1 93 
200 

206 

2I S 

217 

218 
218 
219 
221 

222 
223 
225 
229 

2 33 
234 
236 

237 



Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



Curtains of the Tent, xxvi., 1-14 

Boards and Bars, xxvi., 15-30 

Veils and Hangings, xxvi., 31-37 

Altar for Sacrifices, xxvii., 1-8 

Outer Court, xxvii., 9-19 

Perpetual Light, xxvii., 20, 21 

Priestly Garments, xxviii. 

Consecration of Priests, xxix., 1-35 

Daily Sacrifices, xxix., 36-46 . 

Altar for Incense, xxx., 1-10 

Law of the Census, xxx., 11-16 

The Laver, xxx., 17-21 . 

Oil and Incense, xxx., 22-38 

Inspired Workmen, xxxi., 1-11 

The Sabbath, xxxi., 12-17 

Tablets of the Law, xxxi., 18 

Apostasy, xxxii., 1-14 

Its Punishment, xxxii., 15-35 

Moses' Tent Removed, xxxiii., 1-11 

Seeing God, xxxiii., 12-23 

Epiphany and Covenant, xxxiv., 1-28 

The Shining Face, xxxiv., 29-35 

The Work of Construction, xxxv-xxxix. 

Tabernacle Erected, xl. 



INTRODUCTION. 



TRINITIES. 



A LEARNED writer has said : " A certain 
trinity undeniably runs through all created 
life, especially in man — body, soul, spirit ; thought, 
feeling, will ; the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis 
of self-consciousness." 1 Kant and Hegel have 
carried the trinal processes of thought to their 
limits, but no one is so thoughtless as not to have 
observed that, at every turn, he begins with a pur- 
pose or desire, finds a means or forms a plan of 
ultimating or gratifying it, and so reaches his end 
in an effect in which the first and second stages 
of the process are embodied and terminated. Thus 
three becomes the number of completeness to 
him, and his acts are always third and final steps 
of life. 



1 Dr. Philip Schaff, in History of Christian Church, III., page 

678. 



THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 



Man being so made, the Divine Life from which 
he comes must have its threefoldness, as Lowell 
says that: "Power, Love, and Wisdom, one in 
essence but trine in manifestation, answer the 
needs of our triple nature, and satisfy the senses, 
the heart, and the mind." 1 

We have in Christianity the Divine Names of 
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and in the Old 
Testament we find Jehovah, God, and Lord — 
three yet one ; and no controversy could be more 
absurd than that between those contending that 
God is three and those contending that He is one, 
because He is both three and one, that is, three 
in one, archetypically as man is three yet one in 
soul, body, and operative life. Thus in God, man, 
and beast, there is threefoldness ; and so again in 
inanimate things we have the substance, the form, 
and the use. Thus we may expect to find trinities 
everywhere. "Every perfect thing must be a 
trine," says Swedenborg. 



1 Among my books, 2nd Series, page 118. 



THE TRINITY OF BIBLE LANDS. 



THE TRINITY OF BIBLE LANDS. 

There are many lands mentioned in the Bible 
— Canaan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Arabia, Syria, Baby- 
lonia, Chaldea, Assyria, the islands, and all the 
countries through which Paul passed, but for pur- 
poses of prophecy they are reduced to only three, 
Egypt, Assyria, and Palestine or the Land of 
Israel, and these three are placed in a remarkable 
combination. Note the words in Isa. xix. 23-25 : 
" In that day shall there be a highway out of 
Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come 
into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and 
the Egyptians shall serve (R. V. worship) with 
the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the 
third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in 
the midst of the earth. For that the Lord of 
Hosts hath blessed them, saying, Blessed be 
Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my 
hands, and Israel my inheritance." 

In this striking collocation Egypt is clearly 
placed at the base and Israel at the top, with 



THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 



Assyria intermediate ; or, taken from above down- 
wards, they are placed in the order Israel, Assyria, 
Egypt. That this is no arbitrary arrangement of 
spiritual significance, but rests upon the very 
nature of the lands themselves, may readily be 
seen from a brief examination of them, which will 
show not only that this is the proper order, but 
that each land has relation to human experience 
and spiritually forms a step of a truly progressive 
life. 

EGYPT. 

Egypt is a level country, mostly placed in a very 
narrow line along a single river. This valley of 
wonderful productiveness has a climate so mild 
and even, that almost no protection is needed 
against the weather, and a very moderate amount 
of labor falls to the people. With so genial a 
climate, with a soil yielding almost spontaneously 
its winter grains and summer vegetables, with no 
dangerous animals roving about, and no enemies 
to be feared, it is not strange that the Egyptian 
was and is a round-faced, cheerful being, much 



EGYPT. 5 

given to sleep, and thinking of heaven as a beau- 
tiful meadow lying across the river. The Egyptian 
life is childlike, peaceful, sensuous, The spirit in 
the hall of judgment gained his happy immortality 
bv making forty-two affirmations, of which one 
was, "I have made no man weep/' and it was cer- 
tainly a country in which grief and fear found 
little place. 

Thus one may see why its spiritual significance 
should be given as that of the early life of man, 
when the mind is happily gaining knowledge 
through the senses. It is the natural life formed 
of the knowledge of natural truths ; x it is the 
stage of bodily enjoyment and development; its 
light is that of this world. 2 It comes first in 
human progress, and so Israel must sojourn there 
before it can be in Canaan, and the Lord Jesus 
must therefore in His infancy be an Egyptian for 
a time. 

When the health is perfect and the body full of 
vigor, men may put the athletic life above all else, 

1 Arcana. 1462. 2 Apocalypse Explained, 654. ^ 



THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 



and then the Egyptian type of the Divine, the 
young bull, is really their god, and they worship 
great muscular power. Again, as they seek to go 
onward in development, they feel, as Israel did, 
the temptation to return to Egyptian pleasures of 
sense — they long for the " flesh-pots.' 1 Once 
more, they may yield so fully to the engrossing 
enjoyments of the merely natural man that Israel, 
the higher part, becomes a bondman to the 
Egyptian, and is oppressed with such bondage 
that only a Divine redemption can lead him forth, 
and his Saviour must bring him out of that land, 
" out of the land of Egypt and the house of bond- 
age," and so be his God and give him the precepts 
of life, as both forms of the Decalogue say at 
their beginning. 1 Of course the woes denounced 
against Egypt by the prophets are said of it in its 
oppressiveness and seductiveness ; in other words, 
it is the perverted natural man given to disobedi- 
ence of law and hostility to the higher nature ; it 
is Egypt erring in every work as a drunken man 
staggereth. 2 

1 Exodus xx. 2; Deuteronomy v. 6. 2 Isaiah xix. 74. 



ASSYRIA. 



ASSYRIA. 

The name Assyria stands for the double valley 
of the Euphrates and Tigris — a land whose shift- 
ing monarchies gave it at different periods the 
names of Chaldea, Assyria, and Babylonia, and 
still later it was dominated by the Medes and 
the Persians ; but the Bible means by Assyria the 
whole region with its two streams, the one rapid 
like the Jordan, the other slow like the Nile. 
Moreover the Tigris had a border that was moun- 
tainous, but to the west of the Euphrates lay a 
desert, as in Egypt. With the mountains on the 
east and the desert on the west, Assyria had a 
more varied climate than Egypt, a greater variety 
of products, and rains which must be guarded 
against by better houses and clothing. It did not 
use bricks of mud, but made them of clay more 
skilfully. It had a greater variety of animals, 
domestic and wild, and the Assyrians were 
hunters. They did not revere the Egyptian beetle 
crawling contentedly upon the ground in the sun- 



THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 



shine, but the eagle was their chosen emblem. 
They did not worship the bull alone, but they gave 
him a man's head, a lion's feet, and eagles' wings. 
The Assyrian was more ambitious and was prone 
to aggressiveness. The Pharaoh refused to ac- 
knowledge to Moses the God of Israel and went 
his own way, but at Belshazzar's feast men saw 
the God of Israel insulted and the cups of the 
temple defiled. When Ezekiel was permitted to 
see the Assyrian idolatries, men stood in the inner 
court of the Lord's house with their backs towards 
the temple, and they worshipped the sun between 
the porch and the altar consecrated to Jehovah. 1 

This is the dark side. Apart from the perver- 
sions into which they afterwards fell, the people 
of the double valley were active, intelligent, and 
progressive. Standing higher intellectually, they 
were to the Egyptians what youth is to childhood. 
Not avoiding danger, the Assyrian hunted the 
lion ; not content with luxury, the Babylonian was 
a conqueror of nations. They represent the ra- 

1 Ezekiel viii. 16. 



ASSYRIA. 



tional in man, 1 the intermediate plane between 
the natural (Egypt) and the spiritual (Israel). The 
rational develops in youth with the asking of 
many questions and the raising of many doubts. 
This again, like the first love of knowledge, is 
important to one's development, but it may be- 
come a conceit of negation which arrests the 
mental growth and makes the infidel. Led on, 
however, to the right end it forms the connecting 
link between what is lower and what is higher 
than itself ; it receives and transmits its blessing ; 
and it flourishes with the growth of noble intelli- 
gence, which is more than mere knowledge because 
it sees the reason for law. Such a young man or 
woman the Lord does not call a servant, but a 
friend, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord 
doeth. 2 The Egyptian motive is obedience, the 
Assyrian motive is intelligence, and so is seen in 
the Code of Hammurabi much clear, just reason- 
ing, and it is known that the necessity of speaking 
the truth was a cardinal tenet of Darius and 
Artaxerxes. 3 

1 Arcana, 1462, 2588; Apocalypse Explained, 846. 2 John 
xv. 15. 3 Journal, American Oriental Society, XXL, page 177. 



THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 



But intelligence is not man's highest motive. 
It is wisdom, and thus the next thought is of 

ISRAEL. 

In that remarkable passage which compares 
Israel and Egypt it is said that the former is a 
land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of 
the rain of heaven, and that the eyes of the Lord 
are always upon it. 1 

In its physical features Palestine has wonderful 
variety — the high mountain and the deep valley, 
the lake of pure water and the Dead Sea, the 
battle plain and the lofty promontory of the 
prophet's abode, the seashore and the desert bor- 
der. Assyria has one side like Egypt, the other 
like Palestine, and so is intermediate, but Palestine 
in its features transcends both countries. Its cli- 
mate is complex, for its surface ranges from ten 
thousand feet above the sea to thirteen hundred 
feet below it. It has mineral wealth. As the 
Bible says, it is "a land of wheat and barley and 

1 Deuteronomy xi. n, 12. 



ISRAEL. ii 

vines and figtrees and pomegranates, a land ci 
oil-olive and honey ; thou shalt not lack anything 
in it." 1 There are not less than ninety kinds of 
birds, fish abound in the Sea of Galilee, there are 
all kinds of domestic animals, and as for wild life 
the Hebrew has five names for the Hon, four for 
deer, nine for serpents, and nine for locusts. One 
hundred and twenty plants are mentioned in the 
Old Testament. 2 and Dr. G. E. Post's book on the 
"Flora" shows by wood cuts four hundred and 
forty specimens. 

In all this abundance and fertility of the land 
flowing with milk and honey, we see the type of 
the truly spiritual life. Wisdom is boundless. 
The spiritual has unlimited development. Israel 
is the spiritual, 3 and if any feel that the praising 
of the promised land was excessive, they should 
remember the description of the Spring in the 
Song of Solomon, 4 and should think at the same 
time of the richest and most beautiful lives known 
to men, for they will show what it is to be "an 

1 Deiteronomy viii. S. 9. 2 Conder's Handbook, page 222. 
1 Song ii. 1 1-1 -;. 



12 THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 

Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile," 1 "a life 
without fault before the throne of God." 2 This 
life is not typified by the bull or the lion, but by 
the lamb ; not by the beetle or the eagle, but by 
the dove. There is no promise made to Israel 
that is not attainable if, living in unselfish love of 
the Lord and of the fellowman, one learns not 
only to know the laws of life, and then to under- 
stand them, but also to keep and do them with all 
the heart, mind, soul, and strength. 

It is here that discipline must be undergone, 
and that the soul knows chastening, and it is here 
that men may fail when proved and all their wis- 
dom may fall into the profanation of self-love, till 
they are carried captive to Assyria and are told to 
fall down before the idols of self-worship. Well 
is it then if He who carried captivity captive and 
swallowed up death in victory, is sought for His 
aid, so that the oppressed may go free in the 
liberty of the sons of God. 



1 John i. 47. 2 Revelation xiv. 5. 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF THIS ORDER. 13 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF THIS ORDER. 

It is evident that such being the order of the 
life, Israel is "the third in the midst of the earth." 
The progress of archaeology, apparently a matter 
of chance, illustrates this law. The first of the 
three countries to be thoroughly explored has been 
Egypt, and that work is nearly done, with the 
result that the history of Egypt is minutely 
known, and all its significant phenomena are well 
understood. After Egypt many expected that 
Palestine would engage general attention, but no, 
Assyria must come next, and universities and 
archaeological societies are turning all their ener- 
gies upon that remote region, recovering docu- 
ments, ascertaining history, and making men 
intimately acquainted with the life of the double 
valley. It will be only when energy and patience 
have done their work in Assyria as well as in 
Egypt that Palestine, with its two hundred mounds 
of old cities, will be fully explored. 

The visitor to that magnificent epitome of uni- 



14 THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 

versal modern life, the Exposition at Saint Louis, 
approached the grounds from the city and made 
his way slowly along the avenues, having before 
him these three stages of life. First of all came 
places of eating and of amusement, and in the 
latter class were found scenes and companies 
from the Alps, Ireland, Constantinople, Cairo, the 
Arctic, American Indians, the Phillipines, besides 
shows of wild animals, of battles, and of flood and 
fire. All this was sensuous and pertained to the 
Egyptian stage of life, to the life of the eye and 
the ear. 

Passing on, the visitor came upon the field of 
great white buildings devoted to Agriculture, 
Manufactures, Mining, Electricity, Education, the 
Liberal Arts and the Fine Arts. Here were 
grand evidences of mental achievement, of human 
invention and skill. The self-indulgent nations 
like Turkey had no place here, but all saw the 
advance*in intellectual ways of Japan, of Germany, 
and the United States, closely followed by Great 
Britain, France, Italy, Belgium and others. Here 
was seen the Assyrian stage of life, where modern 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF THIS ORDER. 15 

Nebuchadnezzars may walk in palaces and talk of 
the might of their power and the honor of their 
majesty. 1 Here is of course the danger of pride 
and the denial of the Divine through dependence 
only upon intellectual might, and then Nebuchad- 
nezzars go insane and brutish, until they learn to 
fear Him who is able to abase those who walk in 
the pride of splendid achievement. 2 

Of course it is the central aim of this and every 
Exposition to include everything that ministers to 
bodily welfare — the Egyptian life — but more es- 
pecially to show intellectual advance — the Assy- 
rian life. Only to a slight degree, as is true of the 
world at large, is there recognition or exhibition 
of the spiritual or Israelite life. To be sure, the 
Sabbath was observed to some degree by closing 
the gates, but the higher interests were only min- 
istered to at Saint Louis by two small and pri- 
vately erected buildings, appropriately standing 
on the higher ground and so overlooking the rest. 
One of these buildings was put up by the Dis- 

1 Daniel iv. 29, 30. * Ibid., verse 37. 



THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 



ciples of Christ or Campbellite body as a resting- 
place, and no instructive work was done in it; 
but it is interesting to note that this body has no 
creed but the Bible and seeks to restore the 
usages of primitive Christianity. President Gar- 
field was a member of it and did much to make it 
favorably known. 

Not far from this, standing among trees, was a 
building representing a Swedish house — the house 
of Emanuel Swedenborg — during the years when 
from scientific and philosophical studies he had 
been led to Scriptural and spiritual ones. With 
its walls of restful green and its roof of red tiling, 
this house covered a spacious room where editions 
of the author's works might be seen in Latin, 
English, French, German, Dutch, Danish, Swed- 
ish, Russian, Italian, Spanish, and Arabic, and 
even Hindoo, and where the visitor's questions 
were answered and some literature was given him. 
It is not strange that this house sometimes re- 
ceived six hundred calls in a day and was a centre 
of wide influence, which no one can measure. 
Here was a manifestation of the distinctly spiri- 



-ISAIAH, XIX. 23-25. 17 

tual, for certainly the Swedenborg House stood 
for that and for nothing else, and those who were 
present to extend hospitality thought and spoke 
from no other than the spiritual point of view 7 
regarding things eternal. 

Thus, in a measure, the Exposition represented 
the three stages of life — the natural, the rational, 
and the spiritual — the three points of view from 
which life may be regarded. If many look at life 
for the body's sake, if some look at it for the 
mind's sake, there are not wholly wanting those 
who look at it for the soul's sake and its relation 
to the Lord and the Word and Eternity. 

Isaiah xix. 23-25. 

A well-developed life, as the Scripture indi- 
cates, will have these three planes in order and 
strength. " In that day shall there be a highway 
out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall 
come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, 
and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians." 
This means that science will advance and be 
utilized by the reason, and that both will serve 



1 8 THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 

God. If one reads as many do in the last clause, 
"the Egyptians shall serve Assyria," the mean- 
ing of science serving reason will be still more 
evident. The prophecy continues, with perfect 
prescience, " In that day shall Israel be the third 
with Egypt and with Assyria," that is, in due 
time the spiritual nature will be developed. And 
it will be "a blessing in the midst of the land," 
because the spiritual must have the central place 
in the life, and then only it opens the lower 
planes to inflowing grace and power from on 
high. 

Upon this condition the Lord of hosts is repre- 
sented as looking with joy and saying, "Blessed 
be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my 
hands, and Israel mine inheritance." Egypt is, 
then, the lower nature, docile and helpful, science 
serving the Lord for human good. Assyria will 
then be the work of His hands, because reason 
and intellectual power will not give way to pride 
of self, but will clearly see the work of the Lord 
in all that it achieves, and will grow humble as it 
grows gr£at. Israel will then be the "inheri- 



tance," the most precious gift of God to man. 
There is something nobler than athletics of the 
body or of the mind — it is religious communion 
with the Lord, living with Him and from Him 
and for Him, in that order which makes every- 
thing His while everything is one's own to hold 
and enjoy forever, still all the time His inheri- 
tance, bestowed in pure love according to His 
wisdom upon the children of God as His stewards. 



THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 



EGYPTIAN OPPRESSION. 

r I ^HE beginning of the Book of Exodus marks 
a great change in the affairs of the Israel- 
ites, and wholly for the worse. A new king had 
arisen in Egypt who knew not Joseph. This may 
chapter i. mean merely that a harsher and 

Verses 1-8. . 

more strenuous king had come to 
the throne — perhaps Rameses II., whose imper- 
ious face may still be seen in the museum at 
Cairo, and whose reign was remarkable for its 
length and ambitious acts ; or, it may mean, as 
some suppose, Amosis L, who founded a new 
dynasty by expelling the foreign or Hyksos kings 
from northern Egypt, and then began to consider 
how he might protect himself from invasion or 
revolt on his border. 

However that was, there was a new king ; 
Joseph's great services, as entailing any obliga- 



EGYPTIAN OPPRESSIOX. 21 

tion on Egypt to befriend Israel, were forgotten ; 
and Israel was oppressed. This is said to be due 
to the rapid growth of Israel. Jacob had come 
down with his sons, their wives and children — 
some seventy souls. There were probably others, 
not of his kindred but servants, as Abraham had 
at one time some three hundred and eighteen 
fighting men. But the people who formed Jacob's 
company were no menace whatever to the great 
kingdom of Egypt. Pharaoh had told them to 
■.'. "in the best of the land," and he had 
accepted the blessing of Jacob, whom he regarded 
as the venerable father of a noble son ; l and no 
people were happier anywhere than Israel in 
Egypt then. 

Egypt was thus bearing out its significance as 
the natural plane of good life — the childlike 
stas;e of obedience, the sense life subordinate to 
spiritual. That spiritual was represented by 
Israel as yet in its incipiency. But the promise 
had been made to Abraham, and had been con- 



[ Genesis xlvii. 6, 10. 



2 2 EXODUS, I. 



tinued to Isaac and Jacob ; and, in the midst of 
all the idolatry covering Assyria and Egypt and 
Palestine itself, Israel stood for higher things ; 
therefore, it should enter into its inheritance and 
do the will of the Lord. 

Joseph, the last of the patriarchs, clearly typi- 
fies the Lord Jesus Christ. Rejected by his 
brethren because some knowledge of his life-work 
had been given him, falsely accused and im- 
prisoned, yet made at last the saviour of Egypt 
and of his own race, and this with no thought by 
him of revenge but only of compassion, Joseph 
finished his course in triumph, and, having fed 
the multitudes and brought great blessings to his 
repentant brethren, he renewed the promise and 
passed on, even as the Lord said to the eleven, 
" Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon 
you." 

If one looks deeply into the spiritual meaning 
of Genesis, he will see that in Abraham, Isaac, 
Jacob, and Joseph, are revealed the stages of the 
Lord's redemptive life ; for Abraham represents 
the obedient and trustful childhood which was 



EGYPTIAN OPPRESSION. 23 

called to go forth to its great mission ; Isaac with 
his digging of wells and his thoughtfulness stands 
for the youthful period of quiet meditation and 
acquisition of truth ; and Jacob in his hard life of 
struggle and tribulation represents the young 
Jesus, no longer showing His wisdom in the tem- 
ple, but serving as the carpenter of Xazareth, yet 
acquiring those qualities of saving power which 
were typified by the sons of Jacob ; and then, as 
has been said, in Joseph is seen the Redeemer in 
His public ministry, despised, tempted, hated, yet 
firm in righteousness, and successful at last in 
saving man's life " by a great deliverance." 1 

With the beginning of Exodus the inspired 
story changes its bearing. It does not look on 
the Redeemer, but on those who are to be re- 
deemed. The note is not of triumph, but of de- 
spair. Israel in Egypt now does not speak of the 
promises, but cries out, " How long, O Lord, how- 
Ion g ? M They multiply ; the blessing is upon them 
from God, but Egypt hates and persecutes them. 

1 Genesis xlv. 7. 



24 EXODUS, I. 



It was as when the early Christians felt in their 
hearts the presence of their risen Lord, even as 
Israel treasured the embalmed body of Joseph, 
but found their increasing numbers a cause of 
scourging and stoning and martyrdom. 

Egypt had taken up a new attitude towards 
Israel. So is it with all in the progress of life. 
In childhood all are Egyptians, happy, careless, 
well fed, and the spiritual part of them is not at 
strife with the flesh. But with the development 
of that higher nature comes the " war in the mem- 
bers." 1 They did not think before that they were 
not always to remain in Egypt by the flesh-pots, 
in pleasure of body and ease of mind, but now the 
call of duty is heard. Like a young man who, 
given to intellectual labors only and harmless 
amusements, must drop his games at his country's 
call and gird on the galling harness of a soldier in 
the field, or be a hard-working clerk, or perhaps a 
handicrafts man, so every true life must sojourn in 
Egypt, but it must not remain there, or it will be 
the life of a sensualist and a brute. 



1 Romans vii. 23 ; James iv. 1. 



EGYPTIAN OPPRESSION. 25 

Thus Egypt resists the loss of its mastery. 
Israel was fruitful, and increased abundantly, and 
multiplied, and waxed exceedijig mighty, and the 
land was filled with tliem, is the record. This is 
well, this is as it should be, and soon Israel will 
say a grateful farewell, and go out to its land of 
promise, as Abram had gone out of Egypt in his 
day, "very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold," 1 
signifying the gain of a good childhood for the 
happiness and usefulness of youth and manhood. 

But, no, Egypt refuses. It will hold Israel, it 
will dominate it, it will oppress it into servitude. 
The flesh resists the spirit. "I delight in the law 
of God," wrote Paul, " after the inward man, but 
I see another law in my members warring against 
the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity 
to the law of sin which is in my members. O 
wretched man that lam!" 2 

His condition is signified by Israel 

Verses 9-1 1. 

in Egypt. The king set taskmasters 
over tliem to afflict them with burdens^ and they 

1 Genesis xiii. 2. 2 Romans vii. 22-24. 



26 EXODUS, I. 



built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. 
The Israelites had been living in their little houses 
of earth, by the canals of sweet Nile water, and 
their many cattle and sheep were their care, but 
now they were enrolled in companies, great tasks 
of sun-dried bricks made and laid were imposed 
on them, and imperious men with whips in their 
hands urged on the work beneath a scorching sun. 
They must build store cities for Pharaoh, where 
he can lay up food for his army garrisoning his 
frontier to keep invaders out and Israel in. This 
means that aspirations must yield to lusts, that 
men shall give up the promise of eternal life and 
labor for the meat which perisheth, that men shall 
say to their restless souls, " Here are much goods 
laid up for many years," laying up treasure for 
self and not being " rich towards God," 1 nor 
heaven. If they yield, their life will be building 
barns and treasure cities, when they, like the Dis- 
ciples, should forsake all and follow the Lord. 



1 Luke xii. 19, 21. 



EGYPTIAN OPPRESSION, 27 

Yet the Egyptian plan did not 

Verse 12. 

prosper ; the more they afflicted them, 
the more they multiplied and grew. For the Lord 
is mindful of His own : " Fear not, little flock, it 
is your Father's good pleasure to give you the 
kingdom." 1 

Then what did Egypt do ? It was more cruel. 

It made Israel to serve with rigour. 

Verses 13, 14. 

It made life bitter with hard bondage, 
in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of ser- 
vice in the field. It was not satisfied that store 
cities be built, other tasks were added. So does 
the struggle deepen as temptations by the flesh 
assail again and again even to despair. One goes 
down like Jonah to the bottoms of the mountains, 
the earth with her bars is about him forever, and 
out of the belly of hell he cries to God, 2 and he 
is heard and strengthened, and so there will be 
further trial even to that passover which is the 
sign of final deliverance from Egypt. 



1 Luke xii. 32. 2 Jonah ii. 2, 6. 



28 EXODUS, I. 



MURDEROUS PLOTS. 

Defeated in the attempt to subdue 

Verses 15-17. 

Israel by burdens imposed, Egypt 
resorts to the murder of the male children, leaving 
the others to live. This is a most vital matter. 
In the providence of the Lord inward promptings, 
good and true, are given to men. They grow by 
inflowing power from the heavens. The mind 
knows its births of feelings and thoughts, the 
children of the brain. Generation and regenera- 
tion correspond. These children will lead men to 
cast off the bondage of Egyyt, and therefore the 
natural man in all hates them and is set upon 
destroying them. 

When they see one whose purity incites in them 
a wish to be pure, or when a word comes to them 
out of Scripture which reminds them of the 
promises, or when an unbidden penitent thought 
is found in their minds as they wake in the morn- 
ing, in these and other ways the spiritual children 
come to the birth, and they mean real gain if 



MURDEROUS PLOTS. 



they preserve and nourish them. But they slay 
them if they obey the voice of their lower natures. 
They indeed cannot strangle the life of the daugh- 
ters, the good feelings which will come to mind in 
spite of all, but they may destroy the sons by re- 
fusing to think out what is ri°;ht to be done. For 
example, all know how the impulse to confess a 
wrong which they have done may arise in spite of 
a selfish unwillingness to restore what they have 
unjustly taken, and that impulse no one can pre- 
vent, but the thoughts as to how one shall carry 
out this impulse, what one shall say, and what one 
shall do, may be strangled at once, and thus the 
development of the spiritual nature may be ar- 
rested at birth. 

But again Egyptian hatred did not 

Verses 18-21. 

succeed, and it was said that the 
mothers of Israel were so quick of delivery that 
no time was given for a murderous act. Even so, 
under the Divine mercy, men may have spiritual 
health enough to save the children of the mind, 
so that they survive, and thrive, and inherit the 
promised land of the regenerate life. 



30 EXODUS, I. 



Herod ordered that the infants of Bethlehem 
be slain, 1 in the hope that the Messiah would 
perish in His mother's arms. So does the old, 
the depraved nature seek to destroy the new 
before it can assert itself and establish the king- 
dom of God. But Herod failed, for the vigorous 
mother was on her way to Egypt, a good Egypt 
now, ready to receive the man-child and ready 
again to let Him go His way in due time to the 
"land of hills and valleys, drinking water of the 
rain of heaven," 2 the larger life of the spirit. So 
did the great dragon of the Apocalypse stand 
before the woman clothed with the sun to devour 
her child as soon as it was born. But this was not 
to be, lest Israel, the true church of God, should 
die ; and the child was caught up to God that it 
might be saved to rule all nations, " and the dragon 
persecuted the woman who brought forth the man- 
child, and was wroth with the woman, and went to 
make war with the remnant of her seed. Here is 
the patience and faith of the saints." 3 

1 Matthew ii. 16. 2 Deuteronomy xi. n. 3 Revelation 
xii. 4, 13, 17. 



MURDEROUS PLOTS. 31 

Thus, while Egypt aimed at suppression, Israel 
still multiplied. Xo unjust persecution can suc- 
ceed. "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of 
the church." Though sorely tried, Israel con- 
tinued to grow, for its condition typified being 
persecuted for righteousness' sake, and blessed 
are such people, "for theirs is the kingdom of 
heaven." 1 It is said that the people multiplied and 
waxed very mighty, and that God dealt well with 
the midvuives, who represent here the gentle 
affections for the care and defence of the 2;ood 
and true impulses from destruction in their 
beginnings. 

One more attempt the enraged 

Verse 22 

Pharaoah would make. He could 
not prevent the birth of the sons, but he could 
and did order them to be cast into the river. The 
meaning of this is that, by floods of false reason- 
ing, the natural man in all seeks to prevail. The 
inflowing impulses come and cannot be prevented, 
but they can be reasoned into death, they can be 

1 Matthew v. ic. 



32 EXODUS, I. 



cast into the river. Water has opposite meanings 
in Scripture, because a stream like the Nile or 
Jordan may be, at one time, a life-giving current 
from heavenly mountains, and, at another, a de- 
structive, turbid torrent. 

So, the perverted mind of antiquity is repre- 
sented in the Scriptures by the flood of Noah ; 
and the Red Sea and the river Jordan were hin- 
derances to Israel on its march ; but they were 
prevailed over, even as it is written, " When the 
enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the 
Lord shall lift up a standard against him." 1 

The dragon, when he saw that he could not 
devour the man-child at birth, " cast out of his 
mouth water as a flood ; " 2 but again he was foiled. 
So Pharaoh cliarged all his people p , saying. Every 
son that is bom ye shall east into the river, or, as 
Stephen said in his grand address before he died : 
"Another king arose who knew not Joseph, and 
he evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out 
their young children to the end that they might 
not live." 3 

1 Lsaiah lix. 19. 2 Revelation xii. 15. 3 Acts vii. 19. 



MURDEROUS PLOTS. 33 

Is not this a common experience ? The impulse 
to do right asserts itself ; it is safely born ; but yet 
it may not long survive. Reasoning for the sake 
of reputation measured by false standards, reason- 
ing to avoid self-sacrifice, reasoning in favor of 
special privileges being necessary to one as an 
exceptional person — all these and many others 
may drown that impulse to do right, making it as 
if it had never been, so that the natural will con- 
quer the spiritual, the flesh will rule the spirit 
after all. 

One may think of such a struggle in Peter's 
mind, when, on the sad night at Gethsemane, he 
saw his Master seized and led away. That im- 
pulse was to follow Him and give Him all possible 
aid. The impulse had been born when Peter gave 
the promises, " Though all men -shall be offended 
because of Thee, yet will I never be offended;" 1 
or the stronger word, " I will lay down my life 
for thy sake." 2 And he had used the sword 
against the captors. But soon in the high-priest's 

m 

1 Matthew xxvi. 33. 2 John xiii. 37. 



34 EXODUS, I. 



palace, in the cold of the night, with the officers 
of the temple about him, he began to fear, and his 
purpose relaxed ; and when the time came for 
speaking the truth, he uttered three emphatic 
falsehoods. 1 The Egyptians had conquered for 
the time, and the sorrows of death compassed 
him, the floods of ungodly men made him afraid. 2 
To take an instance of the opposite character: 
The Lord had come to His baptism obeying the 
impulse from within. No doubt, in the quiet of 
Nazareth, there had been temptation to refrain 
from public manifestation and to avoid the strug- 
gle with universal corruption. But He came and 
was baptized. The voice from heaven approved 
the act. The son, the " beloved Scr^ " was going 
on to victory. But then followed the days in the 
wilderness, the oft-repeated efforts of evil to 
overthrow Him. Like a storm it assailed Him; 
as in a great tempest, "the rain descended, and 
the floods came, and the winds blew and beat 
upon that house ; but it fell not, for it was 

1 Luke xxii. 55-60. 2 Psalm xviii. 4. 



MURDEROUS PLOTS. 3$ 

founded upon a rock." l With answers by the 
Word of God He withstood and conquered the 
tempters then as always ; not slain by evil's flood, 
but saying to it, "Thus far and no farther, here 
shall thy proud waves be stayed. " 2 

The first chapter of Exodus ends here with the 
full danger threatened by Egypt to Israel. If this 
last edict be carried out, all the promises to Israel 
must fail, and its history will end like that of a 
lost soul. Yet it is not Israel but Egypt that 
shall drown, for the Lord found out a way to sur- 
mount the threatened danger. So, in every life, 
its great temptations need not defeat it, and no 
powers of the flesh need ever destroy the spirit, 
for the Lord has said : " When thou passest 
through the waters, I will be with thee ; and 
through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee ; 
for I am thy Saviour. "3 



1 Matthew vii. 25. 2 Job xxxviii 11. 3 Isaiah xliii. 2, 3. 



36 EXODUS, If. 



BIRTH OF MOSES. 

chapter The flesh at war with the spirit 

n - fears its mastery, and seeks to sub- 

due it to servitude, and then in greater fear en- 
deavors to destroy right thoughts as soon as they 
arise, and, at last, still unsuccessful in its evil 
design, it endeavors to overwhelm them with 
false reasonings as a flood. But the all-merciful 
Lord has still a means of escape, and this way is 
here set forth. 

A man and woman of the tribe of 

Verses 1, 2. 

Levi had a son given to them, a 
goodly child, and he was in danger. Already they 
had had a son named Aaron and a daughter named 
Miriam before this edict went forth. These chil- 
dren were safe, but this third child, what could 
save its life ? 

She hid him three months, signifying that for a 
time the new intelligence in spiritual things is 
not recognized and is therefore unopposed. At 
first the seed of regeneration lies so to speak in 



BIRTH OF MOSES. 37 

the soil of men's hearts and germinates in secret, 
" curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the 
earth." 1 A man who has been going wrong, and 
who turns and enters upon the new way, is not at 
first in inward strife, and he rejoices in a new and 
unspeakable peace, as the mother held her infant 
in her arms, while no Egyptian knew of him. So 
Nicodemus could go to the Saviour by night, and 
no danger would be upon him until he spoke out 
in the council. 2 So Samuel's mother kept her son 
a while before she placed him in the corrupt 
household of Eli. 3 For three months it was that 
her little one was hid by Jochebed, meaning the 
full period of the first growth of the spirit, and 
then she could conceal him no longer from those 
who sought for his life. But under God she had 
formed a plan to save him, if it were possible. 



1 Psalm cxxxix. 15. 2 John vii. 50. 3 1 Samuel i. 22. 



3 8 EXODUS, II 



MOSES SAVED. 

The mother took some of the tall 

Verses 3, 4. 

papyrus reeds, then common, now no 
longer found in the lower Nile, and wove them 
into a little boat like a cradle. Boats were so 
made in those days. She then took moistened 
earth, such as was used in making houses, and 
filled the openings of the basket-work. This 
done, she gave the outside a coating of pitch or 
bitumen so that the smoothed surface would be 
water-tight. Thus she took for him an ark of 
bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch y 
and put the child thei'ein, and she laid it in the 
flags by the river s brink. 

No doubt this was done near her home on the 
most eastern branch of the Nile, which was then 
flowing into the Mediterranean near the city 
known as Zoan or Tanis or San. This city be- 
came important because the Egyptian court was 
residing there in order to defend the boundary 
from enemies on the East. Therefore the store 



MOSES SAVED. 39 



cities were builded near the border, and there the 
Egyptians and Israelites were dwelling near each 
other at this time. 

The mother, aided by the daughter, so placed 
the little boat with the child in it that it would 
certainly be seen by the princess or her maidens 
when, as they had often done before, they came 
down to bathe in the sacred river for its power to 
give blessings. Probably there were days when 
this was done as a religious rite, and the mother 
knew the time. 

The plan worked well. The prin- 

Verses 5, 6. 

cess came, and when she saw the ark 
among tlie flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And 
zv hen she had opened it, site saw the child ; and 
behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on 
him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. 
This beautiful story brings before the mind the 
cloudless sky, the green lands, the gracious river, 
and the royal damsel, but the central object in 
the scene is the babe in his tiny boat lifting up 
his cry for his mother's arms. And in him, hum- 
anly speaking, lay the whole hope of Israel. 



4Q EXODUS, II. 



It has been seen that the male children were 
to be drowned at the command of the Pharaoh, 
and that this means the destruction of all right 
thoughts of duty by false reasonings, in order to 
give the flesh the mastery over the spirit. The 
saving of this child means that in every one is 
born a dictate of Divine truth which no hostile 
influence can annihilate in its early weakness. 
That dictate, this child, is the Conscience, which 
is given to every one according to his understand- 
ing. It is the still, small voice of God's good 
guidance. It is a priceless gift. George Wash- 
ington said of it, " Labor to keep alive in your 
breast that little spark of celestial fire called 
Conscience;" and the Lord has said, " When the 
Spirit of Truth has come, he will guide you unto 
all truth, 1 for he dwelleth with you and shall be 
in you." 2 

The little boy was a Levite. That tribe, after- 
wards chosen for the priesthood, came from 
Jacob's third son, born after Reuben and Simeon. 

1 John xvi. 13. 2 John xiv. 17. 



MOSES SAVED. 4* 



In Reuben's name is the word for sight, the 
understanding of truth. In Simeon's name is 
hearing, the obedience to truth. And in Levi's 
name the meaning is conjunction — "My husband 
will be joined unto me," 1 said Leah, at his birth, 
— the effect of understanding and obedience. 
The priests were taken from Levi because their 
office was to join the people to God. This child 
is a Levite most appropriately, because he rep- 
resents the law of God as later spoken forth to 
him and by him, and in the individual soul he 
stands for the law written on the heart, the con- 
science ordering the life, the indwelling Spirit of 
Truth, the Comforter. The boy was placed in 
the ark, and this word for a closed receptacle re- 
minds one of the ark of Noah upon the waters, 
typifying the church saved from destructive falsi- 
ties by a remnant with which a new religious era 
might begin. One is reminded also of the ark 
or chest in the tabernacle and temple, containing 
the tablets of the law, for they formed the heart 



1 Genesis xxix. 34. 



42 EXODUS, II. 



of the Jewish religion, and a righteous life has in 
its holy of holies, its inmost place of God, its 
mercy-seat, the Divine law, respected, cherished, 
and obeyed. 

A modest and almost vile ark it was which held 
this child — Nile reeds and mud and black pitch 
— but is it not so with all, that human nature 
makes an inglorious abode for the Lord ? When 
the Saviour was born, there was no room for Him 
in the inn, 1 and He lay in the manger of a beast ! 
" He came unto His own and His own received 
Him not." 2 As the prophet said, " He had no 
form nor comeliness, and there was no beauty that 
we should desire Him." 3 There was heard in the 
low rushes an infant's wail. So has Tennyson 
spoken of his faith : 

An infant crying in the night, 
An infant crying for the light, 
And with no language but a cry.4 

But by the mercy of God, for the help of all 



1 Luke ii. 7. 2 John i. 11. 3 Isaiah liii. 2. 4 In Memoriam, 
LIII. 



MOSES SAVED. 4 3 



others, the child was saved, floating upon the very 
waters which were to have drowned him. The 
princess had compassion. It was the gift of 
the sacred Nile to her, and she could not refuse 
it. A soft light shone in her eyes. She spoke 
in pity and love. She saved the child. She 
stands for that softer side of the natural mind 
without finding which one cannot help another. 
Hardness of heart there is, and hatred of religion, 
but has one not sought and found a way to help 
others when one has spoken of old times and dis- 
tant homes and little playmates by gentle brooks ? 
A rough soldier, profane, lawless, brutal, took out 
of his breast one night a little Testament, and 
said : " My mother gave me that, I can never part 
with it, and now and then I cry over it like a 
baby." 

Egypt had doomed the child, Egypt shall save 
it. The harsh king is balked of his will by his 
own daughter. Herod would slay the young 
Messiah, but Egypt received Him, and He was 
safe. When the heart becomes the foster mother 



44 EXODUS, II. 



of " the holy thing that is born" 1 in it, " not of 
the will of the flesh but of God," 2 the new nature 
has a home, and can thrive, and do the work of 
salvation, even as this story shows in every stage 
of its progress. No wonder the Lord took a little 
child in His arms to show men how to receive the 
kingdom of God. 3 

Watching all that happened was 

Verses 7-9. 

the child's sister, and she played her 
part well by offering to find a Hebrew woman to 
nurse the child. The princess agreed, and the 
child's own. mother was soon brought. Take this 
child, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee 
thy wages, said the princess ; and so it came to 
pass that the mother had not only saved her child, 
but was to be rewarded for her delighted care of 
it. This is right, since Egypt, the lower nature, 
must do more than tolerate the higher, the spiri- 
tual ; she must provide a home for it ; she must 
lay her treasures at its feet, so" that Israel shall 

1 Luke i. 35. 2 John i. 13, 3 Mark1x. 36. 



MOSES SAVED. 45 



go up at last with Egyptian "jewels of gold and 
silver," 1 wherewith to make itself for the Divine 
service an ark and altar. 

The child grew in the care of its 

Verse 10. 

mother and sister, who represent 
those dutiful affections for truth by which the 
conscience is fed and nurtured until it has come 
to some strength. Then with gratitude Pharaoh's 
daughter received him, and he became Iter sou, by 
which is meant the lower nature making the 
higher its "heir of all things according to the 
promise." 2 

The name Moses was now given as a reminder 
that he came from the river, Because I drew him 
out of the water. If she gave him an Egyptian 
name of a different or the same sound rather than 
the Hebrew Mosheh, the meaning w r as to com- 
memorate that event. Out of mortal danger he 
had been preserved. It is good for every man to 
remember the perils out of which the Lord has 

1 Exodus iii. 22. 2 Hebrews i. 2 ; Galatiaxs i. 29. 



46 EXODUS, II 



delivered him, like Jonah whom the waters had 
compassed about, saying : " When my soul fainted 
within me, I remembered the Lord ; I will sacrifice 
to Thee with the voice of thanksgiving.'' 1 

THE MAN MOSES. 

Moses, no doubt, as Stephen said, " was learned 
in all the wisdom of the Egptians," 2 and no doubt 
he had gained skill in writing, and was intelligent 
in history and in such science as Egypt then had. 
The Divine law is scientific as well as spiritual, 
and no theology can be true which does not rest 
on the facts of nature, so that its truth is proved 
by indisputable visible evidence. The conscience 
needs to strengthen itself in the facts of physical 
life, and then it can control the whole nature, for 
nothing can call its dictate in question. 

So passed forty years, the first 

Verses xi, 12. 

third of Moses' life, representing a 
full period of preparation to begin in Egypt the 

1 Jonah ii. 7, 9. 2 Acts vii. 22. 



THE MAX MOSES. 47 

work of judgment, that is, to regulate the outer 
life by spiritual principles. In tJiose days when 
Moses was grown up, lie went out to his brethren, 
and looked on their burdens ; and he sazu an Egyp- 
tian smiting a Hebrew; and lie looked this way 
and that way> and when he save that there was no 
vian, he smote the Egyptian, and hid him in the 
sand. As he walked one day on the border of 
the desert, he heard the cry of a Hebrew beneath 
the lash of an Egyptian taskmaster, and his blood 
boiled in his anger. He looked about and saw 
no one; with the strength -of his passion he 
struck down the master and let the servant go 
free. 

This shows the first work of the Divine law in 
man, namely, to reverse the mastery, to break 
every yoke and to let the oppressed go free. In 
Moses' act lies the same meaning as in the Lord's 
repeated deliverance of people from the domina- 
tion of evil spirits and His restoration of the 
liberty which had been lost. Moses looked to see 
that he was safe and did his deed of retribution 



48 EXODUS, II 



alone, even as the Lord trod the winepress alone 
and of the people there was none with Him. 1 

This smiting of the taskmaster is thus the sign 
of the end of the domination of the flesh, and 
there regeneration actually begins, when the law 
of the members yields to the law of the spirit, 
when "the light shines in the prison," and those 
who have been put there to be silenced go forth 
and speak in the temple the words of life. 2 That 
is the first step, the breaking of the shackles of 
the old slavery- to lusts and greeds, the putting 
down of the flesh to its own place, as Moses made 
a grave for his victim in his own sand, which is 
to bury the old man in one's own falsities without 
that hope of resurrection which would have been 
represented by embalming and an honorable 
burial. 

This is the first step, then there is 

Verses 13, 14. 

a second and a much more difficult 
one. It is easy to discriminate in one's self be- 



1 Isaiah lxiii. 3. 2 Acts v. 20. 



THE MAX MOSES. 49 

tween Egyptian and Israelite, it is much harder 
to judge between one Israelite and another. Yet 
this is absolutely necessary, or the life can never 
be brought into order. Men must not only learn 
to put away the domination of the flesh, they 
must also learn to distinguish between motives, 
emanating from the higher life, yet needing to be 
so subordinated that all conflict will be avoided 
and the nature may find peace. In heaven the 
angelic judgment is not between good and evil, 
for that kind of temptation has ceased, but it is 
between the good of to-day and the higher good 
possible to to-morrow. After Israel should have 
left Egypt it must still advance step by step, as 
Paul said of himself: "forgetting those things 
which are behind and reaching forth to those 
things which are before, I press toward the mark 
for the prize." 1 

So Moses had a second task. When he went 
out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews 

1 Philippiaxs iii. 14. 



EXODUS, II 



stove together ; and he said to him that did the 
wrong. Wherefore smites t thou thy fellow ? Moses 
had gone forth again like a knight errant to right 
wrongs and to succor the innocent. But now he 
had come to his limit. He could adjudge between 
Egyptian and Israelite. He could not yet adjudge 
between two of his own race. Why not? Be- 
cause they would not accept him as their judge. 
The answer was : Who made thee a prince and a 
jitdge over us ? Thinkest thou to kill me as thou 
killedst the Egyptian f 

The man so speaking may have been the very 
one whom Moses had delivered, even as the 
creditor, who had been forgiven all his great debt 
to the king, went out and found a fellow-servant 
who owed him a little debt, and laid hands on 
him and took him by the throat, and cast him 
into prison until he should pay the debt in full. 1 
So Ananias and Sapphira may have learned to 
avoid things sacrificed to idols, but they did not 



1 Matthew xviii. 28-30. 



FLIGHT TO MIDI AN. 51 

go on to put away that covetousness which holds 
back full payment, not from other men, but from 
the Lord. 1 So Solomon gave Hiram his wages 
for work on the temple, but did not see it to be 
wrong to give him a part of the inheritance of 
Israel. 2 At this point the young conscience is 
baffled in its work of judgment. 

FLIGHT TO MIDIAN. 

And Moses was afraid, and said, Surely this 
thing is known. So it was. Pharaoh heard of it, 
and he sought to slay Moses, and Moses fled away 
to the desert. Pharaoh sent some to take Moses, 
and they were searching for him. No princess 
could save him now, and flight was his only 
resource. His life was again in danger, this time 
by his own act. Pharaoh's daughter had prevailed 
over her father, now he prevails over her. All is 
likely to be as if it had never been. The con- 
science cannot continue its conquest at once. It 

1 Acts v. 1,2. 2 1 Kings ix. 11. 



52 EXODUS, II 



may go too fast. It may be too violent. It does 
not give time to gain strength for greater tasks, 
but hurries on with zeal. It expects too much. 
It must pause, or it will rush headlong to utter 
defeat. It will rouse so fearful a storm in the 
nature as to destroy it. It is yet too frail a craft 
for the raging sea. If we would build an en- 
during temple we must not daub with untempered 
mortar. Regeneration is a long, slow growth. 
In his boastful temper Peter opened the way to 
Satan's power. " Pride goeth before destruction, 
and a haughty spirit before a fall." 1 

What then for Moses ? A long service as a 
shepherd in Midian. For the Lord there was the 
long labor of seclusion, so that He came forth at 
length, not called the son of David of Bethlehem, 
but the carpenter of Nazareth. For every one, 
if he would avoid, after brief triumph over sin, an 
utter defeat, there must be patient care of inno- 
cence, the sheep, in humble ways of service, until 

1 Proverbs xvi. 18. 



FLIGHT TO MID IAN. 53 

yet another forty years has passed, a second and 
deeper preparation ; and then in his meekness 
and lowliness of heart, after communion with the 
Lord, he can go before Pharaoh, conquering and 
to conquer. 

When Moses shall come back at last he will 
not only be accepted as a judge between one 
Israelite and another, but when even Miriam and 
Aaron call him in question, he will be found, 
" very meek above all men on the face of the 
earth." 1 And so it is that out of seeming defeat 
may come a final blessing of power, as Elijah fled 
to the wilderness and on to the mount of God, 
whence he came with strength renewed ; and as 
Jacob came back to Bethel which had been Luz 
at the first. 2 So the Lord did not go into the 
wilderness to be lost to His work, but to come 
again to the multitude and be seen as the " Lamb 
of God." It was " expedient" that He went 
away. 3 

1 Numbers xii. 3. 2 Genesis xxviii. 19. 3 John xvi. 7. 



54 EXODUS, II 



THE SHEPHERD. 

Moses from being a prince of 
Egypt had become a wanderer in 
the desert, and then a shepherd of whom it might 
be said as Joseph had said to his brethren, " Every 
shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians," 1 
a barbarian. Yet so it was, for Moses fie d from 
the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of 
Midian. Going out in his pride and strength one 
day, he had without inquiry slain an Egyptian 
taskmaster ; the next day he had interposed him- 
self between two Israelites, and had found rebuff 
and exposure ; and so this judge had become a 
fugitive from justice. Such sudden reverses are 
the result of presumptuous advances. " When 
pride cometh, then cometh shame," 2 saith the 
proverb, and another declares that, " before de- 
struction the heart of man is haughty, but before 

'Genesis xlvi. 34. 2 Proverbs xi. 2. 



THE SHEPHERD, 55 

honor is humility." 1 Yet Moses had done no 
conscious wrong ; he only needed much discipline 
before he would be ready for his life's work. One 
is reminded of Paul who, after his call to be an 
apostle from having violent hatred of the new 
faith, did not at once enter on the work, but said 
of himself, " I went not up to Jerusalem to them 
who were apostles before me, but I went into 
Arabia, and then after three years I went up to 
Jerusalem to see Peter." 2 

Even with the Lord, after. all His preparation 
in Nazareth to bind up the, broken-hearted and 
preach deliverance to the captives, His baptism 
and first visit to the multitudes about John were 
followed by an immediate withdrawal to the wilder- 
ness, where He endured temptation forty days, 
which time is comparable spiritually to Moses' 
forty years of probation in the wilderness of Paran 
before he took up his work. 

He dwelt in the land of Midian, and he sat down 

1 Proverbs xviii. 12. 2 Galatians i. 17, 18. 



56 EXODUS, II. 



by a well. The Midianites were a nomadic people 
feeding their flocks over a large district through 
which the Israelites were afterwards to pass. 
They were kindred, being descended also from 
Abraham through his secondary wife Keturah ; 
and there is reason to believe that Moses found 
among them records of the past which now make 
the first chapters of the Bible, and which are 
much more likely to have been preserved in 
Midian than in Egypt. 

When Moses rested his weary limbs by the 
desert well, he knew not that he was among those 
who would care for him, but it was so provided of 
God that he had found a home. So Abraham's 
servant halted by a well before Rebecca was 
found, 1 and Jacob came to the well at the end of 
his long journey, and presently saw Rachel, 2 and 
now Moses at this well in Midian found his wife 
Zipporah. When the soul is withdrawn from its 
chosen work for needed discipline preparing it for 
nobler deeds, it rests by the well of the Divine 

1 Genesis xxiv. 11. 2 Genesis xxix. 2. 



THE SHEPHERD. 57 

Word, that source of living water of which the 
Lord spake to the woman at the well of Samaria. 1 
Seeking this well, one is sure to find all that is 
needed for the best service and spiritual produc- 
tiveness. 

Moses had not long rested by the 

Verses 16, 17. 

well when the daughters of the priest 
of Midian came to water their flock, but others 
would have thrust them aside to wait until the 
last. The women came and drew water, and filled 
the troughs to water their father s flock; and the 
shepherds came and drove them away ; but Moses 
stood up and helped them, and watered their flock. 
This scene of strife and relief is plain. The 
priest's flock was in the care of his daughters. 
His line, like Melchizedek's, was apparently draw- 
ing to its close ; the older religion was failing, and 
a new one must take its place. The daughters 
were wont to go first to the well, perhaps accus- 
tomed to have respect shown to their father's 
office, but the men with other flocks felt no longer 

1 John iv. 10. 



58 EXODUS, II 



such respect, and their shrewd way was to let the 
women do the hard work of drawing up the water 
and filling the troughs, and then they would drive 
them away and water their own sheep, and the 
women must submit. 

Moses could not endure this. He still hated in- 
justice. He boldly gave his aid, and so the women 
went back earlier and happier. In this is an im- 
portant truth. In the retirement of a vacation, 
or an illness, or an interval of tasks, it is not right 
to be idle, but to cultivate the affections for inno- 
cent things, the fields and flowers, the old asso- 
ciations, the beauties of art, thus defending the 
flock of the priest against those who would wrong 
them. The world undervalues these things be- 
cause it respects only strength and riches, but the 
wise rescue them from neglect and minister to 
them. 

Reuel was surprised to see his 

Verses 18, 19. 

flock come home so early, and he 
said to his daughters, How is it that ye are come 
so soon to-day ? And they said, An Egyptian de- 
livered its out of the hand of the shepherds, and 



THE SHEPHERD. 59 

also he drew water for us and zvatered the flock. 

Dressed as an Egyptian Moses was, but he was 
more than that ; he had not told them who he 
was, for he was humbling himself to the work 
which fell to him, as the Lord did not proclaim 
Himself at Nazareth until He came from the 
ierness. 

Call him that lie may eat bread, 

Verses 20, 21. 

said the aged priest. So did the 
home open to Moses, and the future leader of a 
nation found a place with the simple good folk of 
the desert. And Moses was content to dwell with 
the man ; and lie gave Moses Zipporah his daugh- 
ter. The good remnant of a passing religion joins 
the beginning of the coming one. So Melchizedek 
brought forth bread and wine to Abraham, and is 
heard of no more. So for our Lord there were a 
Simeon and an Anna to bless Him and then de- 
part in peace, having seen the salvation long 
prayed for in an evil time. Zipporah was named 
from the sparrow, the cheerful little bird known 
in many lands, and she represents that cheerful 
love of service which shows itself in the animation 



6o EXODUS, II 



and chipping or twittering note of a little song 
bird. 

And she bare him a son, and he 

Verse 22. 

called his name Ger shorn, for he said, 
I have been a sojourner in a strange land. In the 
fruitfulness of a retired life preparing for a larger 
public work, there is a record to be made in grati- 
tude, a desert child to bring up to strength, in 
remembrance of mercies shown in days of sojourn 
ere as yet the full inheritance has been gained. 

So passed the second forty years 

Verse 23. 

of Moses' life, and all this time the 
suffering Israelites groaned under their burdens, 
and their cry came up unto God by reason of the 
bondage. The patience of the Lord can be ex- 
plained only by His love, even of the sinner. 
Egypt will be borne with as long as is possible, 
until it brings upon itself a heavy judgment. At 
the same time Israel must slowly learn to dislike 
Egypt, or it will return to it after deliverance. It 
must cry out again and again, until despair has 
ripened its desire to depart. So is it with all men 
that no hasty decision against evil is sufficient, but 



THE SHEPHERD. 



the struggle must continue until all the love of 
evil is uprooted. In their small measure men 
must be able to say with the Lord, " The prince 
of this world Cometh and hath nothing in me," 1 
for when the spirit is willing, the flesh may still be 
weak. 2 

God heard their givaning, and God 

Verses 24, 25. 

remembered His covenant with Abra- 
ham, with Isaac and with Jacob ; and God looked 
upon the children of Israel, and God took knowl- 
edge of them. The Lord never forgets and never 
needs to be reminded, but the mind must bring it- 
self by prayer to receive His gifts made wisely, 
and so He " bears long V with His children until 
the promises of the primeval covenant come true, 
and He " avenges His own elect who cry day and 
night unto Him, "3 as they pray, saying, " How 
long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge ?" 4 



x John xiv. 30. 2 Matthew xxvi. 41. 3 Luke xviii. n 
-Revelation vi. 10. 



62 • EXODUS, III. 



CALLED OF GOD. 

chapter in. Leading the flock to the back or 
verses 1-3 wes t ern s jd e f tfa wilderness, Moses 

came to the mountain of God, unto Horeb. There 
the long retirement was ended. A shepherd of 
the Midianites one hour, the next he was the 
chosen man of God. A fiery shrub arrested his 
steps : he looked, and behold,, the bush burned with 
fire, and the bush zvas not consumed. He said, / 
will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why 
the bush is not burned. So easy is the transition 
of sight from the. eye of the flesh to the eye 
of the spirit that Abraham and Jacob and the 
prophets beheld scenes of heaven, and described 
them for the instruction of mankind, not realizing 
the fact that so far they had gone from this world 
to the next by putting aside for the time the fleshly 
envelope of their spirits. The fire in the bush was 
a sign of Divine Love revealing itself to Moses as 
all the glorious scenery of heaven reveals it. And 
this was granted him because the Lord by His 



CALLED OF GOD. 63 

angel would reveal His will to Moses. Whenever 

angels were seen by men, " the glory of the Lord 

shone round about them." 1 

. The angel's voice was heard calling him by 

name, and the answer was, Here 

Verses 4, 5. 

am I. Humanity is not to be moved 
like machinery ; it is to act in freedom for the 
Lord. Moses must turn aside to see, the soul 
must turn to God. Draw not nigh hither ; put off 
thy shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou 
standest is holy ground. Men cannot serve the 
Lord irreverently. They must revere their task 
as a gift of God. They must stand before it 
humbly, and put off their shoes to signify the put- 
ting away of all defiling thought : " be ye clean 
that bear the vessels of the Lord." 2 Men must 
make holy ground of their ways of life; temples, 
and not dens of thieves. Moses standing there 
with bowed head and bared feet as before an altar, 
represents the soul reverently receiving its task, 
saying, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" 3 
" Speak, Lord, Thy servant heareth." 4 

1 Luke ii. 9. 2 Isaiah lii. 1 1. 3 Acts ix. 6. 4 1 Samuel iii. 10. 



64 EXODUS, III. 



Then the angelic voice said from 

Verses 6-8. 

heaven that the God who had led the 
fathers would lead the sons, and while Moses hid 
his face in awe, he heard gracious words of prom- 
ise that Israel would go out to a good land and a 
large, flowing with milk and honey. This is the 
spiritual life, better and larger than the natural 
life, and teeming with innocence and peace. The 
land was said to be then held by the Canaanites 
and other tribes because men must win it against 
the rivalry of the old nature in them. 

Come now, therefore, and I will 

Verses 9-11. 

send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou 
may est bring forth my people out of Egypt. And 
Moses said, Who am I that I should go unto 
Pharaoh? The soul may well stand appalled at 
the largeness of its task. It feels all inadequate. 
There is obviously a good side to this doubt of 
one's self. As David said to Saul, " Who am I 
that I should be son-in-law to the king?" 1 as 
Isaiah, overwhelmed with awe, exclaimed, "Woe 
is me, for I am a man of unclean lips ; " 2 as the 

1 1 Samuel xviii. 18. 2 Isaiah vi. 5. 



CALLED OF GOD. 65 







shrinking Jeremiah said, "Ah, Lord God, behold, 
I cannot speak, for I am a child ;" * as even Peter 
cried out, " Depart from me, for I am a sinful 
man, O Lord" ; 2 and as Jonah fled from the pres- 
ence of the Lord,3 so did Moses shrink. How 
often does the young man draw back from the 
call of country or church to their service ! How 
often does the true-hearted maiden dread the 
large duty of wife and mother ! And the Lord 
answers always, "Fear not, I will be with thee." 4 
The Lord's answer to Moses was 

Verse 12. 

that all would be well, and that they 
should come to Horeb and receive a sign ; and so 
it came out that they came to Horeb a horde of 
fugitives, and left it a nation and the church of 
God. 

But Moses persisted that he did 

Verse 13. 

not even know the name of this God 
who spoke with him, and so could not tell it to his 
brethren. This is true in all senses. The call of 



1 Jeremiah i. 6. 2 Luke v. 8. 3 Jonah i. 3. 4 Isaiah xlvii: 
1, 2. 



66 EXODUS, III. 



duty does not fully make God known to one. 
That must come afterwards as they work together 
for good. "Who is He, Lord, that I might be- 
lieve on Him ?" said the man who had been blind 
till now, and then to his seeing eyes the Lord 
could say, "It is He that talketh with thee." 
And at once came the word, "Lord, I believe." 1 
Israel had lost the sense of the 

Verses 14, 15. 

presence of its God, hence degrada- 
tion and slavery ; it was now to know Him as the 
fathers had known Him, hence deliverance and 
nobility. And Israel was to know God as the 
I am. Thus shalt thou say> I am hath sent me 
unto you. This phrase, I am that I am, may seem 
abstract and metaphysical, but it expresses the 
practical thought which every one needs who does 
his duty in life ; and that thought is that this is 
God's world, not Satan's, and that He is in His 
world, the source of its life and the ordering 
spirit in human affairs. I am — that is the essen- 
tial life, the Divine Love; / am that I am — that 

1 John ix. 36-38. 



CALLED OF GOD. 67 

is love as revealed in its going forth. Here is the 
aspect of Father and Son, the inmost Divine and 
the Divine brought forth to view. " I and the 
Father are one," said the Lord Jesus to the Jews ; 
"The Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the 
works." x 

Obeying God's call, men rise by the temporal to 
the eternal ; as good and faithful servants they 
inherit the kingdom prepared from the foundation 
of the world. 2 The Divine reveals to them its 
eternal unchangeableness, and they know that 
they serve the / am forever. As Mrs. Browning 
puts it : — 

I smiled to think God's greatness 
Flowed around our incompleteness, 
Round our restlessness — His rest. 3 



Verses 16-18. 



Moses must go, must gather the 
elders of Israel together, and tell 
them his great message, and then they must all 
come unto the King of Egypt, and ask for leave to 



x John x. 30; xiv. 10. 2 Matthew xxv. 21. 3 The Duchess 
May. 



68 EXODUS, III. 



go three days journey into the wilderness ', to make 
an offering unto the God of the Hebrews. It is 
to be observed that they would not ask at first 
entire liberty, but only for a respite of labor for a 
brief three days' religious festival. So gradually 
is the spirit to be loosened from the domination of 
the flesh. The flesh is, so to speak, deceived. It 
is not asked to surrender its will all at once ; it is 
only asked to yield a little, only so far as to obey 
the voice of God and confess Him. This is the 
first step, others will follow ; but this is enough for 
the time, to give the Spirit its one day in seven, 
its chance to go and bow down before its God. 

No request to Egypt could be more 

Verse 19. 

reasonable, but God warned Moses 
that it would be refused by a mighty hand, that 
Israel would be powerfully prevented from enjoy- 
ing one breath of liberty. So it is ; the flesh is 
unmerciful, a taskmaster of fearful obstinacy. 
"Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the 
wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and 
cruel man." 1 "Preserve me, O Lord, from the 

1 Psalm lxxi. 4. 



CALLED OF GOD. 69 

violent man, who hath purposed to overthrow my 
goings." 1 

And because of this wicked deter- 

Verse 20. 

mination to rule or ruin, the Lord 
said that He would stretch out His hand and smite 
Egypt. The obstinacy of wickedness brings on 
punishments until it is subdued. After that he 
will let you go. The sufferings of wickedness are 
in consequence of its inability to prevail over 
good ; it gnashes its teeth because there is light 
and peace in the Lord's house of the wedding. 2 
In the deadly struggle between flesh and spirit, 
all the power of the Infinite Redeemer seems to 
be needed, so fast is man bound to his sinfulness, 
but at last, even when he is in despair, captivity is 
led captive, and so death is swallowed up in victory. 
The Lord said that He would give 

Verses 21, 22. 

the people favour in the sight of the 
Egpytians, that is, the flesh will at last submit to 
the will of God ; and then it would be that the 
people would not go empty, but should ask — not 

1 Psalm cxl. 4, 2 Matthew xxii. 13. 



70 EXODUS, III 



borrow, but ask — gold and silver and raiment of 
Egypt to adorn the sons and daughters of Israel. 
Thus would they despoil the Egyptians. The true 
life takes something of value from every experi- 
ence. A sickness teaches patience. A disappoint- 
ment teaches humility. The necessarily long con- 
flict with the lower nature gives sympathy for 
others and skill to aid them. The sons and daugh- 
ters of Israel, that is, the qualities of the regener- 
ate mind, are enriched by the wages of patient 
endurance. At last the flesh acknowledges its 
debt to the spirit and places itself at its service. 
Well is it for one in the stress of the earthly life if 
he can receive of the Lord his talent, and make 
it gain by faithful though. arduous labors ten tal- 
ents more. Then shall he go out of his tribulation 
forever and enter into the joy of his Lord, dwelling 
with Him in His holy mountain. 



SIGNS OF THE CALL. Jl 



SIGNS OF THE CALL. 

Moses had been prepared for his great office, 
chapter both by his training in Egypt and his 
discipline in the wilderness, and he 
had been called to his task. He would be able to 
lead his people along a familiar pathway to the 
mount of God. By wonderful ways the child con- 
demned to be drowned had been preserved and 
made ready for this task. The Lord had a great 
work for this man to do, and he alone of all men 
on earth was qualified to do it. So does God raise 
up one soul for one work. 

Called from the flaming bush Moses w 7 as at first 
overwhelmed with the magnitude of his office. 
"Who am I ?" he had asked, and who was the 
God who called him he must also know, and his 
questions had been answered. 

Yet still he hesitates : Behold, they 

Verse i. 

will not believe vie, nor hearken to my 
voice ; for they will say \ the Lord hath not appeared 

to thee. This seeming; disobedience shows how 



72 EXODUS, IV. 



slowly the sense of duty grows upon the mind. 
The whole natural man holds back, like Saul hiding 
among the stuff, 1 like Jonah fleeing to the west 
from his errand to Nineveh, 2 like Peter with his, 
" Be it far from thee, Lord, this death shall not be 
unto thee." 3 So is it with all ; the old nature in a 
man resists the call of God, and, doubting every- 
thing, even the power of God to do His own work, 
would disobey Him in self-love. 

But the Lord is very patient with all, with the 

bruised reed and the smoking flax. He said, 

What is that in thine hand f A rod. 

Verses 2, 3. 

Cast it on the ground. He cast it on 
the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses fled 
from before it. This rod, with which so many 
wonders were afterwards wrought, was the shep- 
herd's staff with which the sheep were guided and 
defended. It is the type of power in sovereign's 
sceptre or warrior's lance. And what is it to cast 
it on the ground ? It is to debase it, to turn the 
gift, bestowed by God for His noble purposes, to 

1 1 Samuel x. 22. 2 Jonah i. 3. 3 Matthew xvi. 22. 



SIGNS OF THE CALL. 73 

selfish ends. And the rod, so cast down, became 
a serpent from which Moses shrank because the 
snake typifies the low power which reared itself 
against God in Eden, 1 and which in the Patmos 
vision is called " the dragon, that old serpent 
which is the Devil and Satan." 2 It stands for 
sensualism. 

So was evidence given of what results when 

the power of man from God is not put forth in 

His service, but is turned to the service of self. 

But the Lord said that he should 

Verse 4. 

seize upon the serpent, and he did, 
and again his rod was in his hand, and thus he and 
Israel were assured of power, if rightly used. 
Another sign of even greater force : Put now 

thine hand into thy bosom. And he 

Verse 6. 

put his hand into his bosom ; and 
when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous 
as snow. To put the hand into the bosom in this 
state of unbelief is to look away from the Lord to 
self, to put one's power to selfish and not to Divine 

1 Genesis iii. 1-5. 2 Revelation xx. 2. 



74 EXODUS, IV. 



purposes. And this defiles and corrupts the hand 
because the end is sordid and the object mean. 
Miriam in rebellion against Moses, 1 Gehazi hiding 
for himself the gifts of Naaman and covering his 
theft by lying to Elisha, 2 Uzziah rejecting the 
priests and seeking to burn incense in their stead, 5 
all became leprous to signify the moral rottenness 
of the life for self. But with the Lord there is 
forgiveness that He may be feared, and He said 
to Moses, Put thine hand into thy 

Verse 7. 

bosom again ; and so he was healed, 
for the self-life serving God is good. 

Here were two signs, and there was yet a third, 
not then wrought out but described to be done in 
Egypt if Israel were still unbelieving. He should 

take water of the river and pour it 

Verses 8, 9. 

upon the dry land, and it would be 
blood upon the dry land. This third sign completes 
the trine, showing the last stage of unbelief. First 
the power to do good, being degraded to the sen- 
sual life, becomes harmful ; then the strength is 

'Numbers xii. 10. 2 2 Kings v. 27. 3 2 Chronicles xxvi. 19. 



MOSES' LACK OF WORDS. 75 

all made corrupt ; then the very truth of the mind, 
being cast down to earth, is changed to vile falsity, 
as the pools left stagnant by the annual fall of the 
Nile bred red organisms which made the water 
poisonous. 

MOSES' LACK OF WORDS. 

With these signs Moses might go his way well 

warned and well armed ; but no, he has pleaded 

the unbelief of the others, he now urges his own 

incapacity : O Lord, I am not elo- 

Verse 10. 

quent, neither heretofore nor since 
Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant, for I am slow 
of speech and of a slow tongue. As he searched 
high and low for reasons why he should be ex- 
cused, he came upon an important fact. Literally 
he said that he was not a man of words. It ap- 
pears that his long absence from Egypt and Israel, 
and usage of the Midianite dialect, added to nat- 
ural difficulty of expression, had made him slow 
or heavy in trying to put his message into a form 
suited to those whom he must address in Egypt. 



7 6 EXODUS, IV. 



It appears also that he had taken time to think 
what he could say, but had found few words in his 
mind, and was thus discouraged, and was saying 
that he did not find words at first, nor had he 
found them since he was spoken to, meaning after 
he had thought awhile. 

To this fear the Lord answered that His was 

the power of speech ; and He added, Now therefore 

go, and I will be with thy mouth, and 

Verses n, 12. 

teach thee what thou shalt say. So 
was it with the Lord's disciples who had no learn- 
ing by which they could speak either at Jerusalem 
or abroad, for they could mutter only the rude 
speech of Galilee, but they were told : " Take no 
thought how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be 
given you in that same hour what ye shall speak ; 
for it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your 
Father that speaketh in you;" 1 and again the Lord 
said: " Settle it therefore in your hearts 'not to 
meditate before what ye shall answer, for I will 
give you a mouth and wisdom which all your ad- 

1 Matthew x. 19, 20. 



MOSES' LACK OF WORDS. 7 7 

versaries shall not be able to gainsay or resist." 1 
And this promise was especially fulfilled at Pente- 
cost when the spirit gave them utterance, and the 
multitude was amazed and said : "Behold, are not 
all these which speak Galileans ; and how hear we 
every man in our own tongue in which we were 
born ?" 2 

But the need of Moses was supplied in another 
way, and this for a remarkable reason, namely, 
that the Divine Word needs interpretation, or it 
remains sealed. The Lord's truth was to be 
given by Moses, not directly but through another. 
It must be retold in the language of Aaron, or it 
would not be understood and become effective. 
The slowness of Moses' speech describes the 
great and eternal fact that doctrine must be 
drawn from the Word and applied to human 
needs, or the revelation will fail to help. For ex- 
ample, the Book of Revelation was cast out of the 
Bible by Luther as meaningless, yet it holds the 
whole history of Christianity when adequately ex- 

1 Luke xxi. 14, 15. 2 Acts ii. 7, 8. 



78 EXODUS, IV, 



plained, and becomes transparently instructive. 
So it is with all prophecy, that it needs a Divinely 
illumined interpreter. And so it is with the 
Pentateuch, which has the hue of the dead past 
until it is opened, and its spiritual meaning is 
shown to relate to the Lord as the Redeemer and 
to true life to-day and forever. And this inter- 
pretation is represented by Moses' brother Aaron, 
so that there was a dual leadership — the Lord led 
His people, "like a flock by the hand of Moses 
and Aaron." 1 Even so are men led now day unto 
day, if they walk in the light. They were not so 
led when the Bible was kept away from them and 
papal dogma was substituted, for then in effect 
Aaron was in rebellion against Moses and had 
displaced him. Nor are they so led when, through 
going to the other extreme, men read their Bibles 
without doctrine, and find the meaning obscure 
if not contradictory, and so give up the reading 
and say: "It matters not what we believe ; " for 
it does matter. The agnostic of this day has 

1 Psalm lxxvii. 20. 



AAROJSTS PART. 79 



Moses, but not Aaron, when all the time the Lord 
has opened His Word in a rational way. 

AARON'S PART. 

Moses' next words, O Lord, send, I pray Thee, 

by the hand of him whom Thou wilt send, are not 

easily put into English, for the utter- 

Verse 13. 

ance was excited, as if Moses, an- 
gered by the Divine insistence that he should do 
his great duty, or seeing now no way of escape, 
abruptly declared that the Lord must send some 
one else than himself. The Lord knew all along 
what He was doing, that Moses could do this work 
with Aaron's aid, and so we read that He was 

angry with Moses at this point, but 

Verse 14. 

that is only said because to man's 
waywardness the Lord's control seems severe, but 
His deeds to the most sinful embody only love. 

The Lord said, Is there not Aaron the Levite thy 
brother? I know that he can speak well. And 
also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee, and when 
lie seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart. As the 



8o EXODUS, IV. 



Lord had called Moses at the bush, so Aaron had 
been moved to go over the border and meet the 
long lost brother of whose coming he was made 
aware. And thus while Moses was wholly ignor- 
ant of this help and therefore despondent, the help 
was coming, as under the Divine Providence Jonah 
was preserved to do his errand after all, and Israel 
was graven on the palm of the Divine hand 1 in its 
darkest hour : 

Behind the dim unknown, 
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His 
own. 2 

And the voice went on to say, Thou shalt speak 

unto Jiim, and pat tlie zvords in his moitth ; and I 

will be with thy moictJi and with his 

Verses 15, 16. 

mouth, and zvill teach yon zvhat ye 
shall do. And he shall be thy spokesman unto the 
people ; and it shall come to pass that he shall be to 
tliee for mouth, and thou shalt be to him for God. 
In all this is no anger, only the mercy of Him 
who is " long suffering, and abundant in good- 

1 Isaiah xlix, 16. 2 Lowell, Present Crisis. 



AARON'S PART. 



ness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands." 1 
Through Aaron Moses will speak, the law of God 
will avail through interpretation ; and all the in- 
spiration and power of such interpretation are in 
the Word itself, as it is written here, he shall be 
to tliee for mouth and tliou to him for God. 

And one other command was given to Moses, 

Tho?i slialt take in thy liand this rod, wJierewith 

thou slialt do signs. With the staff 

Verse 17. 

of the shepherd he shall stand before 
Pharaoh and show the evidences of his hisrh office, 
the former life merging into the later, as David 
from shepherd became king when, " f rom follow- 
ing the ewes great with young, God brought him 
to feed Jacob his people and Israel his inherit- 
ance ; " 2 and as Amos said of himself, " I was no 
prophet, neither w r as I a prophet's son ; but I was 
an herdman, and the Lord took me as I followed 
the flock, and said, Go, prophecy." 3 

Out of the quiet shepherding of the innocent 
qualities of the heart one is made ready to be a 



1 Exodus xxxiv. 6, 7. 2 Psalm lxxyiii. 71. 3 Amos vii. 14, 15. 



82 EXODUS, IV. 



pastor to others, leading them on from the sense 
life through many tribulations to the spirit life, 
where the Lamb in the midst of the great white 
throne shall feed them, He who was the Good 
Shepherd and for the sheep laid down His life that 
He might take it again, so that His children, His 
flock, might go in and out, and find pasture. The 
rod had become the "rod of God," as it was after- 
wards called, and the man who bears it in faith is 
to be called, as was Moses, "a man of God." 1 

FROM MIDIAN TO EGYPT. 

In preparing for the Divine mission Moses took 

his flock home, and said to his father-in-law, Let 

me go, I pray thee, and return unto 

Verse 18. 

my brethren who are in Egypt, and 
see whether they be yet alive. He had served long 
and well as a shepherd and so was fitted for the 
higher task. It is seen that he did not tell to the 
Midianites what had happened to him, nor did he 



'Verse 20, Chapter xvii. 9; Deuteronomy xxxiii. 1 ; Joshua 
xiv. 6. 



FROM MID I AX TO EGYPT. 83 

declare his full mission to Egypt ; and this was 
because the matter was between him and God, and 
he was not able fully to tell what he would do 
until the day came when Israel would be following 
him toward the mount. To talk fully now with 
the kindly people of the desert would have been 
premature, as our Lord could not explain His full 
purpose before going out of Nazareth, and must 
say to Peter, even at the end of much teaching, 
"What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt 
know hereafter ; whither I go thou canst not fol- 
low me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards.'" 1 
Moses would see, he said, if his brethren were 
yet alive. He thought of their woe and longed 
to help them. As the spiritual part quickens into 
life it seeks to join itself to all men to help and 
to save ; as Joseph had said, " Doth my father yet 
live?" 2 

Jethro answered Moses' request with his Go in 
peace, the benediction of the passing state, the 
reverent dismissal of the guest to his higher 

1 John xiii. 7, 36. - Genesis xlv. 3. 



84 EXODUS, IV. 



sphere of work. Jethro was no Pharaoh, but 

obeyed the Divine teaching. A new message 

soon came to Moses to strengthen 

Verse 19. 

him, for God told him that they were 
now dead who sought his life, so that he could 
indeed go in peace to the old land. New tempta- 
tions assail when new duties come on, but old 
temptations recede. 

Moses essays to go with wife and children, 
taking the rod of God in his hand, the symbol of 

his Divine commission and power, 

Verse 20. 

and he is told to show before Pharaoh 
the signs already described, but he is forwarned 
that Pharaoh will resist. I will harden his heart, 

said the Lord, and he will not let the 

Verse 21. 

people go, that is, what the Lord will 
do will provoke the king to wrathful obstinacy, 
and he will resist to the uttermost. So do men 
say that God afflicts them when their own wilful- 
ness brings misery upon them, and so do they 
attribute to God's purpose all the evil results of 
their own wrong doing, and curse Him. 



FROM MID IAN TO EGYPT. 85 

Moses was told to speak to Pharaoh in this 

way : Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, my 

first-born ; and I have said tint thee, 

Verses 22, 23. 

Let my son go that he may serve me ; 
and thoa hast refused to let him go ; behold, I will 
slay thy son, thy first-boi'n. Israel is called the 
first-born son because, as compared with other 
nations, Israel had been chosen to be the people 
to whom God revealed Himself by giving the law 
to Moses. Not that it was a larger or nobler race, 
but that it would exactly perform the representa- 
tive rites, and would preserve the Scriptures care- 
fully, was it chosen to this high office, and so it 
stood above other nations in its capacity of serv- 
ice to man, if it would do its work faithfully. It 
was for Egypt to obey God, not to defy Him, 
and that defiance, which was forseen, would cost 
Egypt its first-born because by disobedience the 
natural destroys true life. " The wages of sin is 
death." 1 The Lord's disciple must follow Him to 

1 Romans vi. 23. 



S6 EXODUS, IV. 



life, ever more abundantly, while the dead buries 
its dead. 1 

As the journey began with wife and sons Moses 

was suddenly stopped : his own first-born was ill. 

His wife, knowing what was wrong 

Verses 24-26. 

in them, circumcised the stricken son 
and said in reproach, A husband of blood art thou 
to me, meaning that he had delayed too long the 
rite for all Israelites, the rite of purification cor- 
responding to baptism. Already the lack of faith 
on Moses' part has been seen, and again it will 
appear, even until he proves unworthy to enter 
the promised land. This shows great need of 
discipline, so that he would go on his errand very 
humbly. He had long held back and now was 
going on impulsively and needed at once this un- 
mistakably sharp reminder to do only God's will. 
With the sense of reproof upon him Moses 
leaves his family in Midian and goes on alone, nor 
can he have their comforting company until the 

1 Matthew viii. 22. 



FROM MIDI AN TO EGYPT. 87 

hard work in Egypt has been done, when they 
will all come to meet and bless him. He must 
give up something at present as the Lord said 
that, unless a man would leave all to follow Him, 
that man could not be His disciple, and again that 
what a man left behind for that cause he should 
have again a hundredfold. 1 So Moses was met 
and chastened, as Balaam was met on his way, 
and as all Israel was circumcised at Gilgal after 
it had tarried forty years in the same wilderness. 2 
As Moses went alone on his way Aaron came 
out, led by the Lord, and met him in the mount 
of God, and kissed him, and Moses 

Verses 27, 28. 

told Aaron all the zvords of the Lord 
who had sent him and all tlie sio-ns which He had 
commanded him. So does the Scripture open it- 
self to a rational faith ; they kiss each other in 
one spirit, and take up their common work. There 
is a dogmatism which closes the Word, and buries 
it, and seals the stone, and there is a sweet and 

1 Matthew xix. 29. 2 Joshua v. 2-6. 



88 EXODUS, IV. 



reasonable doctrine of light and life which goes 

forth to receive revelation and be at one with it. 

So from the mount of God, the highest in man, 

do revelation and interpretation go hand in hand 

to all Israel. The people believed the 

Verses 29-31. 

words and the signs, that the Lord 
had visited them and had seen their affliction, and 
they bowed their heads and worshipped, an attitude 
of the soul when the light of truth has shone 
upon it making the night light about it, as it was 
to the shepherds of Bethlehem, and it can say, 
" In Thy light I see light. 1 I shall not die, but 
live. It is the Lord's doing and it is marvellous 
in our eyes." 2 

As Moses came out of the desert back to his 
home, ready now to be Israel's deliverer, so our 
Lord returned from the wilderness of forty days' 
trial " into Galilee in the power of the spirit, and 
His fame went through all the region round about, 
and He taught in their synagogues, being glorified 

1 Psalm xxxvi. 9. 2 Psalm cxviii. 17, 23. 



FROM MIDI AN TO EGYPT. 89 

of all;" and His teaching was to read, " The 
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath 
anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor, 
to set at liberty them that are bruised," and then 
to say, " To-day is this Scripture fulfilled in your 
ears." 1 Thus Moses and Aaron were joined in 
Him, and so in the Sermon on the Mount He first 
gave the words of the Law and then added the 
interpretation, and many times He did this, es- 
pecially at His resurrection when He began at 
" Moses and all the prophets and expounded unto 
them in all the Scriptures the things concerning 
Himself." 2 In His Second Coming as well, this 
is His work as the Spirit of Truth, to open the 
Scriptures, not in the flesh, but spiritually, so that 
His own power may be again exerted in the 
Moses and Aaron, the revelation of old and its 
farther opening for final Christianity. 



1 Luke iv. 14-21. 2 Luke xxiv. 27. 



EXODUS, V. 



DEMAND AND REFUSAL. 

There are two great forces in the world, the 
one of God, the other of man. The former is 

chapter self-existing and infinite, the latter 
v * is derivative and finite. The one is 

creative and active, the other is comparatively 
receptive and passive ; yet it is by no means 
merely passive, it is a reactive force. All that is 
created must be relatively passive to that which 
creates it, but as life ascends in the scale from 
the lowest forms up to man, the positive reactive 
power increases, until in man there is the ability 
to use or to abuse the power given to him by 
God. A good human being is one who acknowl- 
edges his relation to the Lord of all life and seeks 
in obedience and cooperation to fulfil the plan of 
the Almighty. An evil man resists being led by 
the Lord and seeks absolute independence in wil- 
fulness. He exercises his human prerogative to 
his own serious injury. So far as in him lies, he 
creates disorder in the universe and is a barrier 



DEMAND AND REFUSAL. 91 

to the Divine work. Yet all the time the Lord is 
seeking nothing else than the eternal welfare of 
all ; and if men hate God and His will, the saying 
is fulfilled, " For my love they are my adver- 
saries." 1 

As regards Israel, it was the Divine plan to 
give that nation a country for itself and to make 
it a means of restoring order to a region in w 7 hich 
evil, increasing to almost incredible degrees of 
inhumanity, had come to prevail. The slaughter 
of children in sacrifice to false gods and constant 
wars of extermination were depopulating it. As 
had been foreseen and promised to the patriarchs, 
it was to be given to Israel. But now, as so often 
in human history, men, blind to their own good 
and seeking only for arrogant freedom, opposed 
themselves to the Divine plan, and resisted it to 
the uttermost ; with what result may be seen in 
the Book of the Exodus, as it is seen in all such 
lives now. " God is not mocked," 2 wisely said 

1 Psalm cix. 4. 2 Galatians vi. 7. 



EXODUS, V. 



the apostle ; and we read in a Psalm of Asaph, 
" Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee, the 
remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain." 1 

The evil man is here Pharaoh ; he is the lower 
nature seeking to rule or else ruin the higher, 
which desires to do the Divine will. Moses and 
Aaron represent the Lord as His messengers of 
the Divine Law and its interpretation. Israel 
has heard the promise of God and accepts it with 
hope. Moses and Aaron then say to Pharaoh : 
Thus saith the Lord, God of Israel, 

Verse i. 

Let my people go, that they may hold 
a feast to me in the wilderness. Israel cannot 
worship God in the land, for that is not allowed ; 
it will go over the border and celebrate its al- 
legiance to God. How little a thing for the king 
to grant ! But he sees here the thin edge of a 
wedge which will deliver Israel from him. Who 

is the Lord that I should obey His 

Verse 2. 

voice to let Israel go ? I know not 
the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. 

1 Psalm lxxvi. 10. 



BURDENS INCREASED. 93 

Moses and Aaron persist : The God of the 

Hebrews hath met with us : let us go, we pray thee, 

three days' journey into the wilderness. 

Verse 3. 

and sacrifice unto the Lord our God, 
lest He fall upon us with pestilence or with the 
sword. They had the common thought of God 
as easily provoked to anger, and He must let 
Himself be so thought of in that day, but there 
lies here a serious truth, namely, that if men do 
not go out and worship, leaving the service of the 
flesh at times for the nurture of the spirit, they 
will suffer harm. It is as when our Lord said to 
the Pharisees, " Ye will not come unto me that 
ye might have life." 1 

BURDENS INCREASED. 

But Pharaoh answered, Wherefore do ye, Moses 

and Aaron, loose the people from their zvorks ? Get 

you unto your burdens. Heavy bur- 

Verse 4. 

dens indeed when the flesh controls, 
and the spirit has no sabbath ! So the Pharisees 

1 John v. 40. 



94 EXODUS, V. 



bound heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, 
and laid them on men's shoulders. 1 So they laid 
on the Saviour the burden of the cross, 2 and He 
that was so innocent bore our griefs and carried 
our sorrows 3 

And Pharaoh went on to say, Behold the people 

of the land are now many, and ye make them rest 

from their burdens; and he gave 

Verses 5-7. 

orders to the taskmasters, Ye shall no 
more give the people straw to make brick, as hereto- 
fore ; let them go and gather straw for themselves. 
This meant a great increase of toil. The straw 
had been brought from the threshing-floors, so 
that it was readily mixed with the Nile mud to 
give more coherence to the bricks, which were 
about two feet square and a few inches thick. Of 
this better sort of bricks Pithom was built, and 
they still exist. The new order was that the 
people must go about and gather stubble out of 
the fields to use as straw. Moreover Pharaoh 

1 Matthew xxiii. 4. 2 John xix. 17. 3 Isaiah liii. 4. 



BURDENS. INCREASED. 95 

expressly said, The tale of bricks, which they did 

make heretofore, ye ska// lay upon 

Verses 8, 9. 

them ; ye shall not diminish aught 
thereof: for they be idle ; therefore they cry, saying, 
Let us go and sacrifice to our God. Let heavier 
work be laid upon the men, that they may labour 
therein ; and let them not regard lying words. 

That is it. The words of God are a lie. Life 
is not to be spiritual. There is no spirit. Life 
is only of the body. God is only a force. There- 
fore let me seize upon all things while they last 
and make them serve my lusts for gold and 
power ; men, women, and children, what are they 
but mine to enjoy? and " after me, the deluge," 
said Louis XV. So reasons in blind rage the 
natural man incensed at the voice of conscience. 
He will crucify the Saviour, and will stand by and 
rail on Him, mocking His prayerful hope. Xo 
straw for Israel means not the least help by the 
flesh to the spirit — no mercy, no pity. There is 
a w T orldliness which does not forget the poor and 
has some feeling; for the innocent who will suffer 



g6 EXODUS, V. 



rather than do wrong. But in this Egpytian 
hardness there is only hate and derision, as we 
read, " Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am 
full of heaviness ; and I looked for some to take 
pity, but there was none ; and for comforters, but 
I found none." 1 

And so the taskmasters sent forth the cruel 

word, and so the people were scattered abroad to 

gather stubble instead of straw, and so 

Verses 10-14. 

the taskmasters hasted them, and so 
the officers or foremen of Israel were beaten and 
demanded, Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your 
task both yesterday and to-day in making brick, as 
Jieretoforef Just this was Pharaoh's purpose. He 
would so oppress them that they could not think 
of God. With Joseph sold into Egypt to be put 
into prison there, his brethren might well say : 
"We shall see what will become of his dreams." 2 
With the two witnesses lying dead in the street 
of the city spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, 

1 Psalm lxix. 20. 2 Genesis xxxvii. 20. 



BURDENS IXCREASED. 97 

the people rejoiced and made merry and sent gifts- 
one to another. 1 

An appeal was made in all truth. The officers 

who had been beaten came and cried unto Pharaoh, 

Wherefore dealest thou thus ztrith thy 

Verses 15, 16. 

servants ? There is no straw given 

unto thy servants, and they say to us, Make brick r 
but the fault is in thine own people. Did this 
move him ? Was Xero moved to see a Christian 
maiden thrown to a lion ? Nay, it was good'sport. 
He would have his holiday. So Pharaoh in every 
man knows no compassion ; and he said : Ye are- 
idle, ye are idle ; therefore ye say, Let 

Verses 17, 18. 

us go and sacrifice to the Lord. Go 
ye therefore and work ; for there shall no straw be 
given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks.. 



1 Revelation xi. S, 10. 



98 EXODUS, V. 



DESPAIR OF ISRAEL. 

What wonder is it that, when the officers came 

out from that audience, and met Moses and Aaron 

zvho stood in the way as they came 

Verses 20, ax. 

forthy they said, The Lord look upon 
you and judge ; because ye have made our savour 
to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the 
eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand 
to slay us. This is despair. It is the Lord cry- 
ing out : " Now is my soul troubled, and what 
shall I say? Father, save me from this hour." 1 
And it is only despair which leads one not to look 
to himself but upward, even as the Lord added : 
" But for this cause came I unto this hour. 
Father, glorify Thy name." * So did the nature 
in Him born of woman gain the victory. But 
Israel had only the beginning of faith. It was as 
a man who tries to do right, but finds his life 
straightened by increasing temptation. He is 

1 John xii. 27, 28. 



DESPAIR OF ISRAEL. 99 

tempted to turn upon his conscience as these 
officers did upon Moses and Aaron. It is Job's 
wife saying, " Curse God and die." 1 It is Job 
himself repeating to reject it, "the counsel of the 
wicked." 2 

Then Moses took up the complaint ; Lord, why 

hast Thou evil entreated this people ? why is it that 

Thou hast sent me ? For since I came 

Verses 22, 23. 

to Pharaoh to speak in Thy name, he 
hath evil entreated this people. Neither hast Thou 
delivered Thy people at all. This early and easy 
discouragement of Moses is truly human. No 
one entering on a new life foresees the difficulties 
of it. He is soon weary and justifies himself in 
view of the failure of God to assist him. Israel 
is of little faith, and is often saying : " My way is 
hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed 
away from my God." 3 



1 Job ii. q. 2 Ibid. xxi. 16. 3 Isaiah xl. 27. 



EXODUS, VI. 



GOD S PROMISE RENEWED. 

Of course the Lord, knowing what is in man, 

expected all this in Pharaoh and in Moses, and 

chapter vi ^ e knew what He would do: Now 

Verse i. tJlOll shalt See what I Will do to 

Pharaoh) for by a strong hand shall he let them go, 
and by a strong hand shall he drive them out of his 
land. What is so absurd as to say, " God cannot 
save," and thus to limit the Holy One of Israel, 
mighty to save ? 

God spoke to Moses, I am the Lord ; and that 

is precisely what men forget, both the evil and 

the good. Moses always spoke to 

Verse 2. 

God as if He were to be rebuked 
for indifference or won over by persuasion. The 
only answer to all such unwisdom is, / am the 
Lord, or, as it is said in one place : " Be still and 
know that I am God." I And here it is told that 



1 Psalm xlvi. 10. 



GOB'S PROMISE RENEWED. ioi 

God said also to Moses that He had appeared to 
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob as 

Verse 3. 

God Almighty, but not as Jehovah. 
This name is now revealed because God will make 
known more fully His love and forbearance and 
pity, as well as His great power. He then re- 
news the patriarchal covenant, re- 
verses 4-6. 

peats the promise of the land of 

Canaan, and once more declares that He knows 

the bondage of Israel and will put an end to it. 

/ will take you to vie for a people, and 

Verse 7. 

/ will be to you a God. There is no 
other purpose of the Divine. It is to bless all if 
they will permit, to pour out of Itself upon them 
to the degree that they are willing and so able to 
receive. Yielding to God means eternal growth 
in good. 

But there is something which man must know : 

Ye shall know that I ant your God, zuho bringeth 

you out from wider the burdens of the Egyptians. 

It is not enough to know God as one who lives, 

He must be known as the personal Saviour. He 



EXODUS, VI. 



is not content to reign only, in His love He is 

the Good Shepherd ; and so He said also : I will 

bring you into the land concerning 

Verse 8. 

which I lifted up my hand to give it 
to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob ; and I will 
give it you for an heritage ; I am the Lord. Thus 
He becomes the Lord of any man by no claim of 
power, but by fulfilling to each faithful soul its 
destiny, and then He is its Lord by bestowing 
freely on it the blessings promised, the kingdom 
prepared from the foundation of the world. To 
whom did the Lord promise thrones ? To those 
who had continued with Him in His temptations, 1 
for " these are they who follow the Lamb whither- 
soever He goeth." 2 

This answer Moses brought back to the people, 
but they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of 

spirit and for cncel bondage. So do 

Verse 9. 

present trials hide the grand issue 
of them ; as Elijah prayed the Lord to take away 

1 Luke xxii. 28, 30. 2 Revelation xiv. 4. 



HIS CHOSEN MEN. 103 

his life, 1 as Jeremiah said: " God hath deceived 
me, I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me; 
wherefore came I forth to see labour and sorrow, 
that my days should be consumed with shame ?" 2 
But the Lord does not yield. 

Verse 11. 

Moses must go again and speak to 

Pharaoh that lie let the children of Israel go out 

of his land. And Moses pleaded, 

Verse 13. 

but God's charge was not recalled. 



HIS CHOSEN MEN. 

The story at this point seems to suffer an un- 
necessary interruption. Genealogies are given, 
and they seem out of place and of no spiritual 
value. But look again. Only three of Jacob's 
sons are mentioned, and they are the three eldest, 
Reuben, Simeon, and Levi. As all 

Verses 14-25. 

the tribes represent all classes of 
religious people, these three sons stand for those 



[ Kings xix. 4. 2 Jeremiah xx. 7, 18. 



104 EXODUS, VI. 



first developed — Reuben, " the son of sight," 
for those who know; Simeon, " hearing," for those 
who obey knowledge; and Levi, "conjunction," 
for those who by knowing and doing are joined to 
the Lord. And this enumeration of families, 
especially of Levi, shows that development of 
the soul which produces, under God, Moses and 
Aaron, the Word of God in its interpretation and 
application, by which the will of the Lord is 
brought to pass in man. Having given the enu- 
meration, the Scripture adds, These 

Verses 26-30. 

are that Moses and Aaron to whom 
the Lord said, Bring oat the children of Israel 
from the land of Egypt according to their hosts. 
These are they who spake to Pharaoh, king of 
Egypt, to bring out the children of Israel from 
Egypt : these are that Moses and Aaron. To those 
who see in the occasional repetitions of statement 
the evidence of more than one original document, 
nothing need be said, for it is of no spiritual con- 
sequence whether there was one document or 
many. The history may be a mosaic, but it is 



HIS CHOSEN MEN. 



historically true of the past, and spiritually true 
of all time, and thus the Word of God is " forever 
settled in heaven." 1 

It is easy to see that, by the first failure with 
Pharaoh, Moses and Aaron have been discredited 
before him and their countrymen, but not so 
before God, and the history goes back a little to 
•show that they are the appointed ones who shall 
yet prevail. It is an eternal call, Let my people 
go. Out of the slavery of the flesh to the spirit, 
every man is called. One refusal of the flesh to 
yield is as nothing. The increased burden of the 
suffering spirit is needed to make it abhor the 
land of its bondage. Israel and every man must 
know the deadly conflict. Despair must teach 
the soul to say, as Hadad said to another Pharaoh, 
" Let me depart that I may go to mine own 
country ; " and when Pharaoh urged him to stay 
he said, " Howbeit in any wise let me depart." 2 



1 Psalm cxix. 89. 2 i Kings xi. 21, 22. 



io6 EXODUS, VII. 



DIVINE PERSISTENCE. 

It is only by repeated efforts that the Divine in 
a man, the Moses and Aaron, can gather strength 
chapter to d° the work of rescue and salva- 
tion. Therefore, this first defeat and 
disaster called only for a renewed attempt to over- 
come Pharaoh, and the Lord said to 

Verses i, 2. 

Moses, See, I have made thee a god 
to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy 
prophet. Thou shalt speak all that I command 
thee, and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto 
Pharaoh, that he let the children of Israel go out 
of his land. As Pharaoh's obstinacy increases, 
the power of Moses and Aaron shall rise in even 
more rapid degree. They shall "go from strength 
to strength," " and this, feeble and of little faith 
though they are, by the patience of the Lord ; as 
the Psalmist said, "Thy gentleness hath made me 
great." 2 

1 Psalm lxxxiv. 7. 2 Psalm xviii. 35. 



DIVINE PERSISTENCE. 107 

When the Lord declares, / will harden Pha- 
raoh's heart, we have the customary speech re- 
garding man's sin, that it is the act 

Verse 3. 

of God, but this is only the appear- 
ance. Divine foresight saw the increasing dis- 
obedience of the king and the judgments which 
he would bring upon himself — my signs and 
wonders in the land of Egypt, so that,, after a 
fearful struggle of hardened man against the all- 
merciful God, Israel w T ould come 

Verses 4, 5. 

forth. Then Egypt would know 
God, as the evil spirit cried out to the Saviour, 
" I know Thee who Thou art;" 1 then Israel 
would know the Lord who had graven them on 
the palms of His hands. 2 

This growth through discipline of Moses and 

Aaron is meant by the saying that Moses was 

now eighty and Aaron eighty-three 

Verse 7. 

years old, for all through the Scrip- 
ture the number forty signifies discipline — 
Israel's forty years in the wilderness, the Lord's 

1 Mark i. 24. 2 Isaiah xlix. 16. 



io8 EXODUS, VII. 



forty days of temptation, the forty stripes of 
punishment for reformation ; l and eighty doubles 
the number and intensifies its force. It is inter- 
esting to note that Aaron, although the elder, 
was subordinated to Moses, who is the god to 
Pharaoh while Aaron is the prophet ; but this 
occurs very often, as with Cain and Abel, Ish- 
mael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Leah and 
Rachel, Manasseh and Ephraim, James and John. 
The saying that "the elder shall serve the 
younger" 2 means that, in the regenerating life, 
a later state is more truly spiritual than a former 
one — the first man Adam is a living soul, the 
last Adam a quickening spirit. 3 

The Lord thus perfects His work slowly. So 
the Lord Jesus knew what it was to be derided 
and discredited as a Nazarene and friend of pub- 
licans and sinners, but He would not cease : 
" I must work the works of Him that sent me 
while it is day." 4 " My Father worketh hitherto, 



1 Deuteronomy xxv. 3. 2 Genesis xxv. 23. 3 i Corin- 
thians xv. 45. 4 John ix. 4. 



WARNING REJECTED. 109 

and I work/' l The disciples were amazed : "The 
Jews of late sought to stone Thee, and goest 
Thou thither again ?" and His answer was, "Are 
there not twelve hours in the day ? " 2 Again and 
again He goes to the Pharaoh in a man saying, 
Let my people go, and leads them by living foun- 
tains of waters out of great tribulation to serve 
God day and night in His temple. 3 

WARNING REJECTED. 

"Evil punishes itself," is a dictum 4 which on 
reflection every one will see to be true. Putting 
the hand in fire one may say that the fire pun- 
ished him, but the fire only went on with its 
proper work ; running against a tree one may say 
that the tree punished him, but it only stood in 
its place ; committing a crime one may say that 
the law punished him, but the law only defined 
the order of the community; breaking any rule 
of righteous living one may say that God pun- 



1 John v. 17. 2 John xi. 8, 9. 3 Revelation vii. 14-17. 
4 "Arcana," 696. 



no EXODUS, VII. 



ishes him, but the truth is that with unchanging 
fidelity Divine order maintains itself. In this 
world and in the other, for both are in the realm 
of Divine truth, sin punishes itself, and every in- 
fraction of universal order holds its own penalty. 
"We wear the yoke of our own wrong-doing," 
says Daniel Deronda. So, be it said once for all, 
as to Pharaoh, when it is written that God hard- 
ened his heart ; for God hardens no man's heart 
and punishes no one. This is the appearance, as 
with the fire or the tree or the law ; yet every 
man punishes himself. 

In speaking of the plagues or punishments 
which fell on Egypt, it is important always to 
view them in their order and to note that so may 
any man injure himself, who sets himself again 
and again to resist the Divine will, which seeks 
only the good of the whole man, both spiritual 
and natural. To let Israel go would have been 
an act of wisdom ; to hate and increasingly to 
oppress Israel is in all ages a self-destructive 
course, since the sinner draws upon himself pen- 
alty after penalty until he yields at last in com- 



WARNING REJECTED. in 

plete subjection to the Divine order, which would 
have blessed if permitted. 

At first only a sign was given, doing no injury 
to Pharaoh. Aaron cast down his rod before Pha- 
raoh and before Ids servants, and it 

Verses 8-12. 

became a serpe7it. This is the shep- 
herd's staff which had done the same for Moses 
himself J as a sign of what results when power is 
abused, namely, that it becomes dangerous and 
destructive. But Moses had been convinced ; not 
so the king : He called for the wise men and the 
sorcerers, and they also, the magicians of Egypt, 
did so with their enchantments : for they cast 
down every man his rod, and they became serpents ; 
but Aaron s rod swallowed np their rods. 

The magic of Egypt misled the king to believe 
that he had by his servants all the power of a 
god. There is magical power, and it seems to 
many marvellous, so that they make a religion of 
spiritistic phenomena, the magic of to-day. Ever 
since men knew the correspondence of things 

1 Chapter iv. 1-5. 



H2 EXODUS, VII 



spiritual and natural, have they been tempted to 
make use of their knowledge for occult purposes 
of priestcraft and gain. But the wise are not mis- 
led by mere magic, for they will keep their faith 
in God, calling no man father on earth, 1 and re- 
buking such perversions, as Peter rebuked the 
sorcerer Simon. 2 

Aaron's rod as a serpent swallowed up the 
others, showing that evil has little power com- 
pared with the power of good ; as evil spirits 
cried out, " Let us alone ; art thou come to de~ 
stroy us?" when the Redeemer healed their 
victim of Capernaum. 3 

NATURE OF THE PLAGUES. 

But the king was not moved. His heart was. 
liar dene d ; he refused to let the people 

Verse 14. 

As the land of Egypt and its history have been 
closely studied, the nature of the afflictions which 

1 Matthew xxiii. 8. 2 Acts viii. 20. 3 Luke iv. 34. 



NATURE OF THE PLAGUES. 113 

now are told is well understood. They followed 
with intervals the course of the year, each one 
having its place when ordinary conditions made 
room for it, as in the case of the first, which be- 
longed to the time of the high Nile, about June. 
Not only was the order natural as well as sig- 
nificant, but every one of these plagues was in 
the eyes of the Egyptians a defeat of some one 
of their deities who was supposed to have the pro- 
tection of the river, the harvest, the cattle or the 
first born, as the case might be. One other fact 
is to be noted : the plagues came in pairs, though 
successively — foul water and frogs, lice and 
flies, murrain on cattle and boils on men, hail 
and locusts, darkness and death — and this means 
that both parts of the mind are injured in turn, 
first the understanding and then the will, as 
falsity and evil result from sin. Thus the pairing 
of expressions, like "joy and gladness, justice and 
judgment," seen also in the Divine names, enters 
into this account as well. 



114 EXODUS, VII. 



WATER MADE BLOOD. 

Moses and Aaron were now told to meet the 

king in the morning: lo, he goeth out unto the 

water. At the time of high Nile 

Verses 15-18. 

when all the land was receiving its 
annual blessing of fertility, the river was espe- 
cially worshipped as the emanation of Osiris. 
Then when the king was by the river he was to 
be given again the request to let Israel go ; and if 
he still refused, it was to be said, The waters shall 
be turned to blood, and the fish shall die, and the 
river shall stink, and the Egyptians shall loathe to 
drink water from the river. This would be as the 
water began to recede. In pools infusoria would 
be formed, and as they died and putrified, the 
water would become most foul and repulsive. 
This is truth turned to falsity like the serpent's 
word in Eden that, knowing good and evil, they 
would be as God and would not surely die, but 
would have their eyes opened. 1 

1 Genesis iii. 4, 5. 



WATER MADE BLOOD. 



So it was done, and over all the water came the 

hue of crimson, and thev could not drink without 

loathing. But again the king called 

Verses 19-22. 

upon his magicians, and they did so 
with their enchantments ; and, seeing this done 
at his bidding, the king's heart renewed its 
pride and he did not hearken, as the Lord had 
said. There is, as will presently appear, a limit 
beyond which sorcery could not go, but it could 
go so far; at least it appeared so to the king; 
and the Lucifer in a man does not submit to cor- 
rection while his power is full, but he says, "I 

will be like the Most High." l How 

Verse 23. 

vividly this is expressed in the 
words, PJiaraoh turned and went into his house ! 
It is the resort to self, the magnifying of self- 
life ; as it is written of the Pharisees, who met 
together and declared that they would not believe 
on Jesus, "for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet," 
and then "went every man to his own house," 
while the rejected One went to a place of oppo- 
site significance, u the mount of Olives." 2 

'Isaiah xiv. 14. 2 Johx vii 52, 52; viii. 1. 



n6 EXODUS, VIII. 



For seven days the people endured this plague, 

representing a full period of affliction, and they 

dug wells in the sand, seeking to 

Verses 24, 25. 

escape the evil, but not by the true 
and manly way of repentance. 



FROGS. 

Closely joined with this came the next plague, 
the frogs, bred from the stagnant pools. There 
chapter viii was as a ^ wa y s ample warning : The 

Verses 1-6. river shall swarm with frogs, which 
shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy 
bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house 
of thy servants and upon thy people, and into thine 
ovens, and into thy kneading troughs. So it was 
done : the frogs came up and covered the land of 
Egypt. 

Here the goddess Heka, always represented 
with a frog's head, was put to shame. The frogs 
leaping and croaking followed after some weeks 
the putrid water to signify that second stage 
of false thinking when men send their insidious 



FROGS. 117 

reasonings everywhere, defiling the home and 
degrading character, as the Pharisees did when 
they said, "He hath a devil and is mad ; He cast- 
eth out devils by Beelzebub," x thereby invading 
the houses of the poor, the synagogue and the 
temple courts with reasonings false and foul, like 
the three frogs seen in Patmos. 2 

Again the magicians succeeded in doing some- 
thing like, but the king was moved by fear, and 
he said to Moses and Aaron, Intreat 

Verses 7, 8. 

the Lord to take away the frogs from 
me and from my people, and I will let the people 
go, that they 7nay sacrifice unto the Lord. 

This yielding was received by Moses with 
eagerness : Have tJiou this glory over me, means 

that Moses, really victorious, is 

Verses 9-14. 

ready to serve him ; and he asks 
for further instruction from the king, as to when 
it shall be done. To-morrow^ answered the king ; 
and Moses said, Be it according to thy word, that 
thou mayest know that there is none like unto the 

1 John x. 20; Luke xi. 15. 2 Revelation xvi. 13. 



EXODUS, VI I L 



Lord our God, and he went on to promise that all 
the frogs would die except in the river. Then 
Moses and Aaron went out and besought the 
Lord, and the Lord did according to the word of 
Moses, 

How easily are men forgiven by Him who is 
" merciful and gracious!" 1 How quickly does 
the course of things become prosperous when 
men repent ! No sooner has the prodigal re- 
turning come in sight of home, than his father 
runs to greet him ; no sooner does he begin to 
confess his great faults, than his father calls for 
the robe and the ring and the feast of great joy ! 2 
Even so not one of Pharaoh's evil deeds will be 
reckoned against him, if he really repents. 

But alas, for him and all such, when he saw 

that there was respite, he hardejied his heart and 

hearkened not, as the Lord had said. 

Verse 15. 

The Lord had said so because He 
knew Pharaoh and every man. In the stress of 
pain and penalty due to no one but themselves, 

1 Exodus xxxiv. 6. 2 Luke xv. 20, 23. 



LICE. 119 

men promise everything, but true repentance 
must be wrought out in liberty, not in duress, as 
a thousand instances show plainly. The frogs 
gone, Pharaoh's mind was changed. 

THE LICE. 

The third plague was of lice, of the land rather 

than of the water. This marks a deeper injury to 

the life. It was perhaps in October 

Verses 16, 17. 

that the dried earth or dust became 
lice in man a7id in beast, as the graphic expres- 
sion is ; the very sand was so mingled with the 
insects that the two seemed one throughout all 
the land. Sensual evils are meant — the low, vile 
ways of filthy loves, the next step downward in a 
sinful career. 

What now of the magicians ? They tried to 
bring forth lice, but they could not, and they said 

unto Pharaoh, It is the finger of God. 

Verses 18, 19. 

This was an Egyptian way of speak- 
ing. None knew better than they that their limit 



EXODUS, VIII. 



was reached. From this time they were on 
Moses' side. So Simon Magus asked to be bap- 
tized, 1 and Balaam, called to curse, blessed Israel 
with the blessings of God. 2 In passing from 
water to land the signs had gone beyond the 
power of magic to imitate. In things intellectual 
such abuses may exist, but when the scene 
changes from thought to life, from the shifting 
waters to the solid earth, no magic avails. 



Verses 20, 21. 



THE FLIES. 

Once more, in spite of the yielding of the 
magicians, the king rejects God, and the next 
woe follows, the swarms of flies 
stinging, poisoning. Every one who 
has been in Egypt knows their power. It was 
now Isis, queen of the air, who was conquered ; 
and everywhere the swarms flew, upon the king 
and his people, until the houses were full of them 
and also the ground. The meaning is of yet more 
malignant evils preying upon the mind like flies. 



^cts viii. 13. 2 Numbers xxiv. 10. 



THE FLIES. 12 1 



One marked difference now is shown. In 

Goshen, the northeastern district occupied by 

the Israelites, there were no flies. 

Verse 23. 

Thus it was a sign of double power, 
and such were the signs following. The Lord 
said, / will put a division between my people and 
thy people : and the Lord did so. It is clearly so 
in all lands ; as people advance upon their roads 
upwards or downwards, the distinction, at first 
not manifest, becomes very plain ; their paths, at 
first apparently parallel, diverge widely and more 
and more, until the sensualism of one is wholly 
unknown to another. To Rome the Lord was 
dumb, so that Pilate marvelled, 1 and the reason 
is plain enough. 

Urgently now the king called for Moses and 

Aaron, and he said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God 

in the land. But this letting go to 

Verses 25-27. 

still hold on is impossible. Moses 
said, It is not meet so to do ; for we shall sacrifice 



1 Mark xv. 5. 



EXODUS, VIII. 



tlie abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes ; 
and will they not stone us ? True worship can- 
not be rendered in subjection to the flesh, which 
will repress it as hateful. No, Israel must go 
three days jotirney into the wilderness . There, 
where the mind has really entered on its way to 
the mount of God, it can freely " sacrifice the 
sacrifices of thanksgiving," ' but not before then. 
To this the stricken king said, / will let you 
go that ye may sacrifice in the wilderness ; only ye 
shall not go very far away. Again 

Verses 28-32. 

he is temporizing, but again the 
Divine mercy will revoke the plague, only let not 
Pharaoh deal deceitfully any more in not letting 
the people go to sacrifice to the Lord. And this 
warning was given because every time that a 
man mocks God, he does himself a deadly injury. 
The plague was stayed, but the king was false 
this time also. 



1 Psalm cvii. 22. 



THE BOILS. 123 



THE MURRAIN. 

Then came warning of the very grievous mur- 
rain or cattle-sickness, sometimes in a degree 
chapter ix now known in Egypt about Decem- 
verses 1-7, ^en j t came U p 0n cattle, horses, 

asses, camels, sheep and goats ; and they died, 
but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not 
one. The king sent to see if this was so, and 
then was stubborn, as before. 



THE BOILS. 

Then came as companion to the cattle plague 

that of boils upon man and beast. Ashes of 

the furnace Moses sprinkled toward 

Verses 8-12. 

Jieaven, signifying that hearts like 
the king's are consumed with base passion ; and 
that, when they are spread before heaven, their 
vileness comes to judgment, as in the Book of 
Revelation when the angel's bowl was poured 



124 EXODUS, IX. 



upon the beast, " pains and sores" resulted. 1 
The magicians were smitten like the rest, power- 
less now one and all, burning with the carbun- 
cles of passions corrupted with vile loves. Even 
now the king resisted still. 

THE HAIL. 

So came on a long warning, God showing that 

He doth not willingly afflict, 2 and the king was 

urged to protect his cattle from the 

Verses 13-26. 

coming hail. And some among his 
servants feared the word of the Lord and made 
people and cattle flee into the houses, but others 
regarded not. This shows the repentance not 
only of magicians but of others, the remnant 
delivered from the final judgment at the eleventh 
hour, " ere the lamp went out." 3 Then came 
thunder and hail, and the fire ran down upon the 
earth, such as it had not beeji in all the land of 



1 Revelation xvi. 11. 2 Lamentations iii. 33. 3 i Samuel 



THE HAIL. 



Egypt si?ice it became a nation ; and it smote all 
that was in the field, man and beast, every herb 
and every tree ; only in the land of Goshen where 
the children of Israel were> was there no hail. 
Here is shown, not the injury merely, but the 
destruction of mind by persistent sinfulness. 
This is its first stage. 

Pharaoh's word now was, / have sinned this 

tune ; intreat the Lord, and I will let yon go, and 

ye shall stay no longer. And Moses 

Verses 27-35. 

said yes at once, but he added, 
/ know that ye will not yet fear the Lord God. 
Through the fields he went where the flax and 
barley were smitten, but not the wheat and spelt 
for they were not grown. This would be in Feb- 
ruary. Alas that it must be written that, when 
the hail ceased, Pharaoh sinned yet more aiid 
Jiardened Ids heart. 



126 EXODUS, X. 



THE LOCUSTS. 

Thus the eighth plague must follow, the 

locusts, again with a full but ineffective warning, 

chapter x. although some Egyptians urged 

Verses i-ii. p haraoh to yield> and he did reca]1 

the brothers and demanded, Who are they that 
shall go ? but to their reply that all must go, he 
answered that only the men might go, and the 
two were driven out from Pharaoh f s presence. 
When Moses and Aaron, when the influence of 
the Lord over and in man, is altogether driven 
out, is it not the sin against the Holy Ghost ? * 
An east wind blew upon the land all day and 
all night, and it brought the locusts. Very griev- 
ous were they. There remained not 

Verses 12-15. 

any green thing. Here is the further 
destructiveness of sin that all aspirations for good 
cease. 

Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste, 

1 Matthew xii. 31. 



THE DARKNESS. 127 



and he said, I have sinned against the Lord your 

God and against yon. Forgive my 

Verses 16-20. 

sin only this once, and intreat the 

Lord your God that He may take away from me 
this death only. As before, there was no vindic- 
tive ness, and the west wind took up the locusts 

and drove them into the Red Sea. But the lesson 
was in vain, and the king was obdurate still. 

THE DARKNESS. 

The ninth plague was darkness, that terror of 
Egypt when the' air is filled with sand, a dark- 
ness which may be felt. For tlrree 

Verses 21-23. 

days they saw not one another > 
neither rose any from his place, but ail the children 

of Israel had light. So the great sun-god Ra 
was put to shame. So was typified that dark- 
ness of the mind when it closes itself to truth, 
and "hateth the light, neither cometh to the 
light," 1 but one "stumbles at noon day as in 
the night and is in desolate places as dead." 2 

1 John iii. 20. 2 Isaiah lix. 10. 



128 EXODUS, X. 



The king yielded : Go ye, serve the Lord, only- 
let your flocks cwtd your herds be stayed ; but the 
answer of course was that they must 

Verses 24-26. 

have animals for sacrifice and burnt 
offering. Without the consecration of all the 
powers to the service of the Lord there can be 
no spiritual life. Lip-service will not suffice. 
A heart without an altar of love is sounding 
brass and tinkling cymbal. 1 " Faith without 
works is dead." 2 The tree must bear its fruit 
or die. 3 

When the king turned again in his wrath to 
defy God, he said to Moses, Get thee from me> 

take heed to thyself see my face no 

Verses 27, 28. 

more, for in the day thou seest my 
face thou shall die. Confirmed evil slays its 
Saviour with mockery, buries Him, and seals- 
the stone. " His blood be on us and on our 
children," it cries. 4 And the Lord in tears over 
Jerusalem could only say, " Your house is left 
unto you desolate." 5 

1 1 Corinthians xiii. 1. 2 James ii. 20. 3 Matthew xxi. 19.. 
4 Matthew xxvii. 25. 5 Matthew xxiii. 38. 



THE DARKNESS, 129 

Thou hast spoken well, said Moses, / will see 

thy face again no more; and thus the king by 

his own overt act, at the end of a 

Verse 29. 

long course of folly and sin, con- 
demned himself to the outer darkness of a life 
hating the light, a life stopping its ears to the 
appeal of God and the angels, who speak in 
love, " This is the way, walk ye in it," 1 but are 
answered with scorn. No more ; so it was said 
of Babylon, no more of the harper, no more of 
the craftsman, no more of the millstone, no 
more of the candle, no more of the bridegroom 
and bride, for in it was found the blood of 
prophets whom it had slain upon the earth. 2 

For love, so oft cast out, comes back 

No more again, no more ; 
It spake what e'en to memory now, 

Returns no more, no more. 3 



1 Isaiah xxx. 21. 2 Revelation xviii. 22-24. 3 After A. H. 
Clough. 



130 EXODUS, XL 



THE FIRSTBORN SLAIN. 

The terrible year of affliction for Egypt drew 
to its close. Egypt had caused Israel to suffer 

chapter a ^ ^' ls time, but Egypt had suffered 
XL more, and this not from any deeds 

of Israel, but from its own perverseness. Step 
by step misery had come upon the king and his 
people as they with equal step moved against 
God and His purpose to give Israel justice. 
Downward fell Egypt as it strengthened itself 
in resistance until, like the herd of Gadara, 1 it 
leaped to death. 

The Lord had said unto Moses, Yet one more 

plague will I bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt, 

afterwards he will let you go Jience ; 

Verse 1. 

when he shall let you go, he shall 
surely thrust you out hence altogether. Not only 
the hardness of heart had been foreseen, but the 
final yielding with urgency that Israel go out. 

1 Matthew viii. 32. 



THE FIRSTBORN SLAIN, 131 

Here is consolation for the troubled soul, 
oppressed by its own evils like so many masters, 
that at last by the mercy of the Lord and its 
patient fidelity to Him, the prison doors shall 
open and the oppressed go free out of the fur- 
nace of iron on the road to holy ground. 

But first the command to spoil the Egyptians 

is repeated, 1 for the time has come to ask for 

gold and silver. Again an encourag- 

Verse 2. 

ing word, that every affliction en- 
dured in faith makes room for some blessing of 
love and light, the oil of joy for mourning. 

When it is added that at this time 

Verse 3. 

Moses was very great in the land, 
the meaning is of the final reign of righteous- 
ness overcoming the world where sin causes so 
much tribulation. 2 

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again, 
The eternal years of God are hers ; 

But error wounded writhes with pain, 
And dies among his worshippers. 3 

1 Chapter iii. 21, 22. 2 John xvi. 33. 3 W. C. Bryant. 



132 EXODUS, XI. 



The text goes back now to the final words of 

Moses to the king before he went out from his 

presence. And Moses said, Tims 

Verses 4, 5. 

saith the Lord, About midnight will 
I go out i}tto the midst of Egypt, and all the first- 
born shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that 
sitteth upon his throne even ttnto the firstborn of 
the maidservant that is behind the mill ; and 
all the firstborn of cattle. In the firstborn is 
the hope of the future, and therefore this death 
will mark the end of continuance in power. 
There is a Divine limit, and it has been reached. 
Egypt would have slain all the babes of Israel, 
but it was prevented, and now its power ends 
after being so long misused. " I have seen the 
wicked in great power and spreading himself 
like a green bay tree, yet he passed away and 
lo, he was not ; yea, I sought him, but he could 
not be found." l So speaks the Psalm, and our 
Lord expressed the same fact by weeping over 
the self-doomed Jerusalem. 2 

1 Psalm xxxvii. 35, 36. 2 Luke xix. 41. 



THE FIRSTBORN SLAIN. 133 

This plague of pestilence would go from the 
king to his humblest servant turning the stone 
hand-mill, and even to the cattle, to signify that 
there is no degree of evil great or small which 
does not come under the same law of limitation. 
Otherwise there would be no salvation of souls 
anywhere. And Moses went on to 

Verses 6, 7. 

say that a great cry, such as there 
hath been none like it nor shall be like it any more, 
would be heard ; but that against any of the 
children of Israel not a dog w r ould bark. This is 
the eternal contrast of the peace of God and 
the weeping and gnashing of teeth of confirmed 

evil arrayed against religion. And 

Verse 8. 

Moses ended with predicting that 
then all Egypt would bow dozen to him, saying, 
Get thee out and all the people that follow thee, 
and then, said he, / will go out ; and he left 
Pharaoh in anger. Moses' impatience, which 
appears often, finally debarring him from enter- 
ing the Promised Land, still has its meaning as 
to the Lord, for His infinite love of souls may 



134 EXODUS, XII. 



seem a zeal of wrath to those who do not love 
Him, when it is in reality without the least 
vindictiveness. 

During all these months nothing is said of 
Israel but that the plagues did not fall upon 
them. Many times no doubt deliverance seemed 
to be near, but as often were they disappointed. 
Their duty was of patience and trust until these 
calamities were overpassed, 1 but now they must 
act with haste and zeal. 

THE PASSOVER. 

This month shall be unto you the beginning of 

months ; it shall be the first month of the year to 

chapter xii you: In the tenth day of this month 

verses 1-6. ^y s / ia // take f them every man 

a lamb, a lamb for a household. Your lamb shall 
be without blemish, a male of the first year ; ye 
shall take from the sheep or from the goats ; and 
ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the 

1 Psalm lvii. i. 



THE PASSOVER. 13 \ 



month; and the whole assembly shall kill it 

between the evenings. 

That month of Abib, to which they had now 

come, the month of Spring flowers, must here- 
after begin the sacred year, for the national 
birthday was in reality one with the exodus. 
So the true, the spiritual life begins in a Spring 
of hope and light, and men must be kept mind- 
ful of it or they will not remain true to their 
Saviour. Like disciples called by the Lord, like 
Paul amazed on his road, like the woman whom 
Satan had bound these many years, so Israel 
on this day began to live anew indeed. And 
how was the new life to open ? Every family 
if large enough, or otherwise two jointly, must 
select a perfect lamb on the tenth day and keep 
it apart until the fourteenth, on which day the 
moon would be full. The lamb, so often used 
in sacrifice, typifies innocence, a living purpose 
to do only good. So the Lord was the Lamb of 
God, and on the tenth day of the month He 
entered Jerusalem as a king willing to be offered 
in sacrifice. 



EXODUS, XII. 



If they had no lamb they might take a goat, 
which represents a less perfect innocence. And 
if they were too few, they must join two families, 
representing degrees of strength, all the weaker 
being helped by union. The tenth day stands 
for the quickening of all that has been stored 
within a man from childhood of good states of 
life. If there were ten righteous persons in 
Sodom it could be saved, 1 and every Israelite 
must bring the tenths tc God 2 as representa- 
tive of the consecrated life. To keep the lamb 
apart until the fourteenth day is to exalt inno- 
cence until a twofold and perfect Sabbath is 
reached. Then the offering must be made be- 
tween the evenings. This apparently trivial 
detail illustrates the value of every word which 
no loose translation must be suffered to obscure. 
The Hebrews like the Greeks had two evenings, 
the first when the shadows lengthened, the 
second at sunset, when the next day began. 

1 Genesis xviii. 32. 2 Leviticus xxvii. 32. 



THE PASSOVER. 137 



The first evening would stand for the declining 
day, the second for the coming day, and between 
lies that state when fear gives way to hope. It 
was at that hour that the Lamb was slain on 
Calvary. 1 It was at that hour that the pass- 
over, symbol of salvation, was' killed every year 
in Israel. 

We further read, They shall take of the blood 

and put it on the two side posts and on the lintel, 

upon the houses where they shall eat 

Verse 7. 

it. Thus they would make all the 
place holy even to the door, as in a life where all 
its going out and coming in will be marked with 
its innocence, its truthfulness in service. 

The lamb must be roasted and must be eaten 

with unleavened bread and bitter herbs : it must 

not be eaten raw nor sodden with 

Verses 8-11. 

water (boiled), but roast with fire, 
head, legs and inward parts. And it must be 
eaten in that night, with nothing to remain until 

O 7 O 



1 Mark xv. 34-42. 



138 EXODUS, XII. 



morning, but the bones would be burned in the 
morning. The roasting stands for the quality of 
love essential to a holy life. The lamb must not 
be eaten raw, a type of the natural, unpurified 
life ; nor cooked in water, as if doctrine prevailed 
rather than life. The unleavened bread signifies 
as is presently shown the ardor of movement, 
but especially the exclusion of selfish, human 
taint, and the impulse received and acted upon 
as it came from God. The bitter herbs must 
be eaten to typify that all such supreme acts of 
faith give some pain of true discipline to the 
soul. 

The manner of eating was with loins girded, 
shoes on feet and staff in hand. Ye shall eat it 
in haste, it is the Lord's pass over. 

Verse 11. 

The meaning is plain. The whole 
man must respond. There must be no delay 
and no uncertainty. Israel is to march, and 
the whole being must be alert. The haste is 
the measure of the earnestness. They wait 
until the Lord passes by, and then they go 



THE PASSOVER. 139 



swiftly as, eager to be disciples, men left their 
nets or their dead kindred and went after the 
Lord ; * and as men watching for Him would be 
able when He knocked to open immediately. 2 

While they did this, the Lord would go through 

the land and smite the firstborn, both man and 

beast, and against their gods He 

Verses 12, 13. 

would execute judgments ; but when 
He saw the token upon the houses He would 
pass over. Here, as usual, punishment is spoken 
of as the act of God, but it is really the act of 
man who goes against the order of the universe. 
And this is the division between those who 
prosper by that order and those who suffer from 
it, that this one token of life, the feast of the 
lamb, is found with the loyal, but not with the 
rebellious. 

The law of the annual feast is then given, 
but in every subsequent year it would be a feast 

of seven days, during all which time 

Verses 14-20. 

unleavened bread must alone be 
1 Mark i. 18; Matthew viii. 22. 2 Luke xii. 36. 



14° EXODUS, XII. 



used ; and every one who refused to keep it so 
must be cut off ; and the feast must begin and 
end with days of holy convocation. As the years 
pass and the full import of the Divine call reveals 
itself, for seven days, the measure of the fullest 
sanctity, the soul will keep the feast, seeing that 
to abandon this is spiritual suicide. And it is 
not to be kept without the closest sympathy of 
soul with soul, the holy convocation. So the 
supper of the Lord, the Christian passover, calls 
for communion of spirit, for oneness in Him. 
The sojourner as well as the man born an Israel- 
ite must keep it, showing that the whole nature 
obeys the Lord if true order of life prevails from 
above. 

All was to be done as commanded, and with 

a bunch of hyssop, the symbol of discipline, the 

purged heart, 1 the doors were to be 

Verses 21-27. 

marked ; and all were to remain 
indoors through this time, signifying no wander- 



PSALM li. 7. 



PHARAOH SUBMITS. . 141 

ing of the mind to other purposes. Moreover 
in future years when children would ask why 
this was done, the father must tell the whole 
storv for the Lord's sake and their own. 

Hearing all this the people, who saw the 

majesty of God now revealed, bowed the head 

and worshipped. And the children 

Verse 28. 

of Israel went and did, as the Lord 

commanded. It is a state of perfect faith, un- 
utterably 2;ood while it lasts, and it is a fore- 
taste of heaven. It says, " Not my will but 
thine be done." z 



PHARAOH SUBMITS. 

In that night Israel feasted, but Egypt fainted 

for fear, for there was not a house where there 

was not one dead ; and the king, 

Verses 29-33. 

forgetting his threat of death if 
Moses saw him again, sent for him and Aaron, 
and said, Rise up, get you forth from among 

1 Luke xxii. 42. 



142 EXODUS, XII. 



my people ; and go, serve the Lord, as ye have 
said. Take your flocks and your herds, as ye have 
said, and be gone ; and bless me also. Com- 
pletely broken, the will of the king has yielded 
at last to let Israel go, just as they had at the 
first requested ; and he even said bless me also. 
confessing the power of the God of Moses. 
Does not everyone at times see how foolish is 
sin, and at such times does not one say that 
all true blessing is not in wickedness but in 
righteousness ? Moses is vindicated here as 
was the Lord when the centurion, looking on 
his crucified victim, " glorified God, saying, Cer- 
tainly this was a righteous man, this was the 
Son of God." x And Paul's jailer, convinced of 
his own weakness before the prophets of God, 
"took them the same hour of the night, and 
washed their stripes, and was straightway 
baptized." 2 



'Luke xxiii. 47; Mark xv. 39. 2 Acts xvi. 33. 



ON THE MARCH. 143 



ON THE MARCH. 



At once the movement began — The people 

took their dough before it was leavened, their 

kneading troughs being bound up in 

Verses 34-36. 

their clothes upon their shoulders. 
A good purpose gains nothing by delay. " Sa- 
lute no man by the way," said Elisha to his 
servant, sent to the house of the bereaved 
Shunammite to bear the staff and place it on 
the child. 1 The right hand is weakened if men 
let the left hand know its purpose. 2 When the 
Lord sent forth the seventy He said, "Salute 
no man by the way." 3 It is the wise man who 
does not leaven the best impulses of his heart 
with selfish considerations, but goes straight to 
his works of righteousness. 

Now was it that the Egyptians willingly 
gave gold, silver and raiment, types of the 
treasures of experience, and presently needed 

1 2 Kings iv. 29. 2 Matthew vi. 3. 3 Luke x. 4. 



144 EXODUS, XII. 



to adorn the Tabernacle, symbol of religious 
life. 

The first hour of the liberty of Israel was 

one of movement. It is selfishness which is 

idle ; service is activity for other's 

Verses 37, 38. 

sakes ; true life is progress ; and 
the children of Israel journeyed from Raamses to 
Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that 
zvere men, beside children. And a mixed multi- 
tude went up also with them ; and flocks and 
herds, even very much cattle. The people had 
been originally placed in the district of Goshen 
in the northwestern part of the land. This is 
once spoken of as "the land of Raamses/' 1 
probably because the district was afterwards so 
known from its chief city built by the Rameses, 
the oppressor of Israel, whose work on that and 
the neighboring city of Pithom was probably 
still going on. Israel had nothing to leave but 
the land and the little houses made of the soil 

1 Genesis xlvii. 11. 



ON THE MARCH. 145 

and soon to crumble back to it. Perhaps they 
went from all directions to the city and thence 
to a camping place called therefore Succoth, 
like the other places of that name in Palestine 
or near it. 1 They had but about thirty miles 
to go to pass over the border, and they would 
move straight for the sunrise. 

The number six hundred thousand may be 
derived fram the census taken about a year 
later by tribes. 2 It is a round number sugges- 
tive of the full and rapid development of the 
people and spiritually descriptive of the power 
gained by endurance. The children would repre- 
sent those later qualities which would mature 
in time. The mixed multitude became soon a 
source of weakness, and it is easy to see that, 
made up as it was of other subject races who 
had not been instructed in knowledge of one 
God, it represented the unconverted elements in 
humanity, that so often hinder the growth of 
true religion. 

1 Genesis xxxiii. 17 ; Psalm lx. 6. 2 Numbers i. 



146 EXODUS, XII. 



It is said that the sojourn of Israel in Egypt 

was four hundred and thirty years, a statement 

which early caused difficulty and 

Verses 40-42. 

continues to do so. Unless gener- 
ations not given in the text intervened between 
Levi and Moses the number is much too large, 
but it is not too large when connected with six 
hundred thousand men, and the two statements 
stand together. If the sojourning of Abraham 
in Egypt be included and thus the whole rela- 
tion of Israel to Egypt, the period is about 
right. The number four hundred and thirty has 
marked significance, for four hundred is from 
forty, the number of years in the wilderness 
and of days in the Lord's temptation, and so 
it stands for discipline and tribulation ; while the 
number thirty, the years of Joseph and David 
and the Lord when life was fully entered upon, 
means maturity of inward state ; thus this com- 
bination represents growth by discipline, life 
enriched by arduous but necessary experience. 
The law as to who might eat of the passover 



ON THE MARCH. 147 

is plain if it be noted that it was for all who 
were prepared for it by circumci- 

Verses 43-50. m 

sion : until the lite be in process 
of improvement the Christian passover is mean- 
ingless and profitless. That they must not go 
about to eat in several houses evidently means 
the need of simple steadfast purpose. Not to 
break a bone of it is to carry out the idea of 
refraining * from interfering in the work of the 
Lord, as was true also of building the temple 
when no sound of axe or hammer was heard. 1 

The Lord thus brought out the children of 
Israel by their hosts the selfsame day. In that 
season when all the power of the enemy was 
brought to naught, when the Lord had made 
His presence felt as never before in Israel, and 
when all hearts, filled with awe, sought only to 
obey Him, in that day, that most momentous 
day, Israel moved like an army from Raamses 
to Succoth along the land of its sojourn towards 

1 Kings vi. 7. 



148 EXODUS, XII 



the Mount of God. It was an event of immeas- 
urable importance to the nation which still 
keeps the passover, but it is of even greater 
importance to those who can read the spiritual 
sense, who see how wonderfully every willing- 
hearted one is led out of the tyranny of the 
flesh into the liberty of the sons of God ; for, 
if the Lord doth make them free, they shall 
be free indeed. 1 What march of Alexander, of 
Napoleon, compares with that of people going 
forth by their hosts from slavery to sin unto a 
good land and a large! 2 "Thou calledst in 
trouble and I delivered thee." 3 

In this vivid conjunction of life with death, 
of Israel moving to the Mount of God from 
among the Egyptian corpses, there is set forth 
the eternal law that the old must die when the 
new is born. "He that loseth his life shall 
find it." 4 The Lord laid down His own life to 
take it again in glory. "I die daily," saith the 
apostle. 5 

1 John viii. 36. 2 Exodus iii. 8. 3 Psalm lxxxi. 7. 4 Mat- 
thew x. 39. 5 1 Corinthians xv. 31. 



SACRED FIRSTBORN. 149 

Men may rise on stepping stones 

Of their dead selves to higher things. 1 

And while the dead bury their dead, the 
living forget the things which are behind and 
stretch forward to the things which are before, 
pressing toward the goal unto the prize of the 
high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 2 

SACRED FIRSTBORN. 

One of the first commands which Israel re- 
ceived on leaving Egypt was, Sanctify unto vie 
chapter xni °-tt the firstborn, a law which was 
verses 1, 2. ^ rst Q £ a jj intended to save their 

lives ; for it appears from excavations to have 
been the custom to sacrifice the firstborn for 
the sake of the younger children. At Gezer 
and Taanach this practice has left its traces in 
bones of infants buried under corner stones. 
Ahaz, a king of Jerusalem, sacrificed his son. 3 
The king of Moab made a burnt offering of 

1 Tennyson. 2 Phillipians iii. 13, 14. 3 2 Kings xvi. 3. 



EXODUS, XIII. 



his son. 1 In Leviticus one finds the practice 
prohibited in severe terms, showing the preva- 
lence of it. 2 Instead of the child being made 
a victim, it was the Lord's and so was saved 
alive as His. 

The law of the passover is repeated to em- 
phasize it as a perpetual ordinance. Further 
teaching is then given as to sanc- 

Verses 3-10. 

tifying the firstborn both of man 
and beast. The child was to be redeemed, 
that is, it was to be bought back from the 
Lord by an offering. This is seen when Mary 
brought the infant Jesus to the temple and 
gave him to the priest, who accepted him for 
the Lord, and then gave him back, and took 
instead the offering of the poor, two doves. 3 
Here appears the spiritual meaning, that the 
beginning of growth in every soul, its firstborn 
of God, shall be hallowed, not defiled by low 
and selfish aims, but made to do the will of the 
Lord. 



*2 Kings iii. 27. 2 Leviticus xx. 2-5. 3 Luke ii. 22-24 ; Eder- 
shemi's Messiah, Book II., Chap. vii. 



SACRED FIRSTBORN. 



There was an especial provision that the young 

ass should be redeemed by means of a lamb or 

a kid ; and if not redeemed, then 

Verses ii-i5. 

its neck should be broken. The 
ass was not to be sacrificed because it was re- 
garded as unfit or unclean. Either it might 
be redeemed by substituting a clean animal, 
or with an owner unwilling to furnish a lamb 
or kid it* was to be slain, implying that by it 
is signified a quality so low that it cannot be 
accepted as sacred. And this law for the first- 
born is also a memorial of the deliverance from 
Egypt when those sons were slain that these 
might prosper, typifying the rejection of the 
perverted natural life to save the spiritual. "It 
is profitable for thee that one of thy members 
should perish, and not that thy whole body 
should be cast into hell." l This law was 
spoken of as a token upon the hand and as 
frontlets between the eyes, meaning that thought 
and deed must conform to its spirit. 

1 Matthew v. 29, 30. 



152 EXODUS, XIII. 



SUCCOTH TO ETHAM. 

Coming now to the actual movement again, 

we read that God led them not by the way of 

the land of the Philistines although 

Verses 17, 18. 

that was near ; for God said, Lest 
peradventnre the people repent when they see 
war, and they return to Egypt ; but God led the 
people about, by the way of the wilderness of 
the Red Sea. Had the Israelites followed the 
usual seaside route they would have had little 
more than a hundred miles of desert travel 
before they would reach the limits of their 
Promised Land ; but they would have gone 
straight against a nation much stronger than 
themselves, afterwards their formidable enemies 
until subdued by David, and now and for three 
centuries unconquerable. The history of the 
Philistines is not fully known, but they were, 
as their name implies, colonists, probably from 
the Island of Crete, and they seem to have 



SUC COTH TO ETHAM. 153 

held the use of iron as a monopoly, so that 
Israel in Saul's time was dependent on them 
for weapons and tools. 1 

Dwelling in five walled cities, the Philistines 
were too strong for Israel, wholly unaccustomed 
to battle, and therefore Israel could not safely 
be led that way. The " Philistine" has become 
a byword for a coarse person who does not 
appreciate art or learning ; and this is not far 
from the signification of that nation, if a relig- 
ious point of view be taken ; for the Philistines, 
in constant hostility to Israel, in their defiance 
by Goliath, and in their repeated assaults upon 
David, represent infidelity despising religious 
humility and indulging in the pride of superior 
knowledge. " I will cut off the pride of the 
Philistines," saith the Lord by the prophet. 2 
Against such power Israel could not stand, and 
therefore their way must be longer and less 
direct. It is thus that the Divine Mercy meets 

l i Samuel xiii. 19-22. 2 Zechariah ix. 6. 



154 EXODUS, XIII. 



the weakness of men, giving up the way too 
hard for them and going around with them 
until an easier way is found, not breaking the 
bruised reed nor quenching the smoking flax/ 
"Why cannot I follow Thee now?" demanded 
Peter, and he was for going straight on ; but 
he could not do it, that very night he would 
yield to fear ; he could not follow his Lord 
then, but might do so "afterwards." 2 

Instead then of going northeastward Israel 
held a more eastward course, the way of the 
Red Sea, or more correctly, the Sea of Reeds, 
the shallow water lying along the line of the 
modern Suez Canal. And they went up armed 
means probably that they held some simple 
weapons such as shepherds carry, thus prepared 
in a degree for strife and moving with some 
form, although not yet given the order of camp 
and march later prescribed. 

It is a most interesting and important fact 

1 Isaiah xlii. 3. 2 John xiii. 36-38. 



SUCCOTH TO ETHAM. 155 

that Moses took the bones of Joseph with him % 
for lie had straitly sworn tJie chil- 

Verse 19. 

dren of Israel, saying, God will 
surely visit you ; and ye shall carry up my bones 
away Jie7tce with you. Sojourning so long in 
Egypt and honored so highly, Joseph never 
swerved from the promise to his fathers, but 
was sure that Israel would have at last the 
land of Canaan. There and there only should 
his bones be buried. The oath is told as it 
was exacted by him in his last words, and his 
body had been embalmed and put into a coffin 
of wood. 1 No doubt it had remained with his 
descendants, and now it went with Israel as a 
pledge of future good. As Joseph is a type 
of the Lord in his love of his brethren, his 
forgiveness of their crime and his saving them 
alive, so his bones, borne by Moses, would repre- 
sent the Lord going on the way with every re- 
generating soul, pledging ultimate victory. 

Genesis 1. 25, 26. 



156 EXODUS, XIII. 



And they took their journey from Snccoth and 
encamped in Etham, in the edge of the wilder- 
ness. This was the Egyptian fron- 

Verse 20. 

tier. Etham is well known from the 
Egyptian records. It was the gateway of the 
desert, Israel had probably moved so far along 
canals of sweet water from the Nile, over the 
usual road eastward, and now they are about 
to leave Egypt, as they believe. But their 

movement is guided by a column 

Verses 21, 22. 

of light, cloudlike by day and lumi- 
nous by night. The pillar of cloud by day and 
tlie pillar of fire by nigJit, departed not from 
before the people. Evidently they had a glimpse 
of the light of the other world, as Moses had 
at Sinai, as Ezekiel and other prophets had, 
and as the disciples had at the Mount of Trans- 
figuration ; and so the Divine presence was made 
known to them continually. 

So is it in every one's progress. The Lord 
is his light and the light of the world, 1 the 

1 John viii. 12. 



TURXING BACK. 157 



everlasting light/ so that he does not walk in 
darkness but has the light of life. By day, in 
states of peace and power, this light may be 
less fully perceived; but let trouble and temp- 
tation come, let the darkness thicken in the 
shadow of the valley of death, and the light 
gleams forth " to give light to them that sit in 
darkness and the shadow of death, to guide 
their feet" into the way of peace." 2 And it 
goes before, because heaven is above and not 
below, before and not behind. 

TURNING BACK. 

So far Israel had gone eastward, but they 
had been directed to go first to Sinai and bow 
themselves before the Lord there. 3 On this 
eastward course Israel would pass far to the 
north of Sinai, and therefore a southeasterly 
course must be taken and adhered to for a long 
time. This would seem to require only a turn 

"Isaiah lx. 19. 2 Luke i. 79. 3 Chapter iii. 12. 



158 EXODUS, XIV. 



from Etham southward, but no, Israel must 
turn back altogether : Speak unto the children 

chapter xiv °f I srae l that th- e y turn back, and 
Verses 1, 2. encamp before Pihahiroth, between 
Migdol and the sea, before Baalzephon ; over 
against it shall ye encamp by the sea. 

It may be that Israel found at Etham the 
usual garrison to defend the frontier from re- 
peated invasions, and it may be that the expres- 
sion armed 1 implies that in approaching Etham 
the people made some effort to force their way, 
but could not do so. However that may be, 
they were commanded to turn southwestward 
within the Egyptian boundary and go along by 
the sea to a well-defined spot where the sea 
would lie across their path. This spot lay be- 
tween the water and three other places, but 
none of these is as yet so clearly located as to 
be without doubt, and therefore one must be 
content to leave the precise place undetermined. 
Nor is it possible to say as to the water, just 



1 Chapter xiii. 



TURNING BACK. 159 



how far up the land the Red Sea or Gulf of 
Suez extended in those days, but it probably 
did extend farther than now, a shallow sea with 
many reeds, hence called Supli. 

This position was apparently fatal to Israel, 

for Pharaoh will say, They are entangled in the 

land, the zuilderness hath shut them 

Verse 3. 

in. In other words Israel is to be 
so placed as to be helpless and to look death in 
the face. The utility of Israel going into despair 
and then being saved, is seen from its repeated 
decisions to forsake the Lord for the gods of 
Egypt. It must then be repeatedly taught to 
look only to the Lord ; as the Psalm says, 
" Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now 
have I kept Thy word." l Moreover, Egypt, 
although so severely disciplined, is not yet satis- 
fied that God can deliver, and it will make a 
nnal effort, as the forces of evil, often subdued, 
made against the Lord when in Gethsemane 



1 Psalm cxix. 67. 



160 EXODUS, XIV. 



came the hour of the power of darkness. 1 This 
is the meaning of the words, The 

Verse 4. 

Egyptians shall know that I am the 
Lord. 

PURSUIT BY EGYPT. 

Israel, yielding apparently to necessity as well 

as command, left Etham, and found rest in the 

place assigned, but the king was swiftly informed. 

Then naturally, the heart of Pha- 

Verse 5. 

raoh and his servants was changed 
towards the people, and they said, What is this 
we have done, that we Jiave let Israel go from 
serving us ? As the old nature in a man, sub- 
dued by penalties of suffering, is quick to reassert 
itself as soon as the sufferings cease and to feel 
that it yielded too easily, so Pharaoh proclaims 
that a mistake has been made and that selfish 
interests may yet be vindicated against God and 
His people Israel. 

1 Luke xxii. 53. 



PURSUIT BY EGYPT. 161 

He made ready his chariot \ and took his people 
with him ; and he took six hundred chosen char- 
iots, and all the chariots of Egypt, 

Verses 6-9. 

and captains over all of them. And 
the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of 
Egypt, and he pursued after the children of Israel, 
for the children of Israel went out with a high 
hand. It is easy to see the energy of this move- 
ment. The king called out his own six hundred 
chariots and also all other chariots of near 
stations. Each had its experienced captain or 
fully armed soldier, and each its driver to manage 
two spirited horses. Of such chariots Israel had 
not one, nor had it any means of defence against 
such a charging force. 

Hitherto the king had employed cruelty in 
his treatment of Israel to bring about their 
subjugation, but now he will annihilate them. 
Chariots and horses represent the crushing 
power of the old mind in man in its final and 
desperate effort to have its way, even if the 
deliverance of the enslaved has been by the high 
hand of God. "Away with Him, crucify Him, 



1 62 EXODUS, XIV. 



His blood be on us and on our children" 1 — 
such is the mad reasoning of the Pharaonic 
spirit. When it is said that the Lord hard- 
ened Pharaoh 's heart, the meaning is as before 
of evil as well as good attributed to God, though 
men are responsible for turning His life in them 
to sin. 

TAUGHT TO TRUST. 

The Egyptians soon came upon the camp of 

Israel. The children of Israel lifted up their eyes 

and, behold, the Egyptians marched 

Verse 10. 

after them, and they were sore 
afraid, and they cried out nnto the Lord. This 
is the end of human resource, and it is just the 
time when Israel should have exercised that 
trust which it had been taught in Egypt. 
"What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee." 2 
But Israel had learned no trust and never did 
learn. A few learned to trust God's providence, 

1 John xix. 15; Matthew xxvii. 25. 2 Psalm lvi. 3. 



TAUGHT TO TRUST 163 

Moses, Joshua, David and especially Daniel ; 
but the people, looked at from their subsequent 
history, had always " their heart not right 
with Him, neither were they steadfast in His 
covenant." ■ 

At once they turned upon Moses as if he 

were their chief enemy : Because there were 710 

graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us 

Verses 11, 12. 

' away to die in the wilderness f 

Wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to bring 
us forth out of Egypt ? Is not this the word that 
we spake unto thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone 
that we may serve the Egyptians t For it were 
better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we 
should die in the wilderness. 

This is weak humanity seeing no way forward 
because it is faithless, and begging to be allowed 
to fall back into all baseness. The answer to 
this attitude is like that of the Lord to the 
shrieking disciples, "It is I, be not afraid." 2 



: Psalm lxxviii. 37. 2 Matthew xiv. 27. 



164 EXODUS, XIV. 



And Moses said, Fear ye not, stand 

Verses 13, 14. 

still, and see the salvation of the 
Lord, which He will work for y on to-day ; for the 
Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see 
them again no more forever. The Lord shall 
fight for yon, and ye shall hold your peace. 
Because men need such times when they can 
only " hope and quietly wait for the salvation of 
the Lord," l they have them ; and even the Lord 
in the times of temptation " stilled and quieted 
His soul like a child weaned of his mother;" 2 
but deliverance is ever at hand for them that 
wait on the Lord. 

Speak unto the children of Lsrael that they go 

forzvard. Lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out 

thine hand over the sea, and divide 

Verse 15. 

it ; and the children of Israel shall 
go into tlie midst of the sea on dry ground. The 
sea was like Noah's flood, it was like the Jordan 
rolling between Israel and its land ; the sea in 
such cases is the type of infernal falsities engulf- 

1 Lamentations iii. 26. 2 Psalm cxxxi. 2. 



EGYPT ENGULFED. 16 



o 



ing men, like the flood cast out of the mouth of 
the serpent to destroy the woman and her child. 1 
The Sea of Reeds was the ally of Egypt, but 
God could do with it what Egypt could not, He 
could bear it back, saying, "When thou passest 
through the waters I will be with thee ; and 
through the rivers, they shall not overflow 
thee." 2 As our Lord went straight through the 
midst of the foes of men, to preach deliverance 
to the captives, 3 so God would lead Israel 
through the sea, but their enemies 



Verses 17, 18. 

would perish therein. 



EGYPT ENGULFED. 



First the pillar of cloud removed from before 

them and stood behind them, and the one host 

came not near the other all the night. 

Verses 19, 20, 

The accompanying angel, the guid- 
ing influences of heaven, acted as a check upon 
the movements of the Egyptians. As there are 



1 Revelation xii. 15. 2 Isaiah xliii. 2. 3 i Peter iii. 19. 



1 66 EXODUS, XIV.. 



states of life when the soul advances under the 
lead of the Holy Spirit, so there are other times, 
when it pauses before difficulties, wearied and 
discouraged, and then the help which is needed 
and given is protection, a power which neither 
slumbers nor sleeps, and which watches over 
Israel, preserving it "from all evil from this time 
forth and even forever more." r 

In that night was the wonder wrought. A 

strong east wind blew, and made the sea dry 

land, and the waters were divided. 

Verse 21. 

The power of the wind, which easily 
pressed back the water, reminds one of the 
mighty rushing wind of Pentecost, 2 of the wind 
of the story of Noah which caused the waters 
of the flood to recede^ and of the angels hold- 
ing back the winds until those were sealed who 
were not to undergo the judgment, which would 
be wrought by letting the power of heaven in 
upon the abodes of those who were to be judged. 4 



1 Psalm cxxi/4, 7, 8. 2 AcTsii. 2. 3 Genesis xviii. 1. 4 Rev- 
elation vii. 1. 



EGYPT ENGULFED. 167 

The waters, so divided towards the lake north- 
ward and the main sea southward, were a zvall, 
because no one could approach 

Verse 2*. 

Israel from the sides. And Israel 
marched over the space between, which may 
have been a slight ridge from which the waters 
would fall either way. 

So all was plain for Israel, moving swiftly in 
the morning light with fresh hope. And Egypt 

as quickly pursued with its chariots, 

Verses 23-25. 

still sure of victory. But they were 
soon in difficulty. It is said that in the morning 
watch the Lord looked forth on them through the 
pillar of fire and of cloud, and discomfited them. 
He took off the chariot wheels, and made them 
to drive heavily, so that the Egyptians said, Let 
its flee from the face of Israel, for the Lord 
fighteth for them agaijist the Egyptia?is. This 
is easily understood. As both fire and cloud are 
named it was evidently in the twilight of dawn 
that the chariots dashed into the breach, but 
galloping horses sank deeply in the sand, and 
wheels, adapted only to level roads, were strained 



1 68 EXODUS, XIV. 



and loosened, and a panic came upon the men. 
It is in the morning watch of a new hope that 
faith strengthens; " weeping may endure for a 
night, but joy cometh in the morning;" 1 and 
then the powers of evil are correspondingly 
weakened: " in the night all the beasts creep 
forth, the young lions roar after their prey; the 
sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and 
lay them down in their dens." 2 Again Egypt 
is subdued, the old nature confesses the power 
under God of the new nature, of Israel. 

But it does not end there. Already Egypt 
has lost cattle, crops and firstborn ; it must lose 
its chariots and horses as well as their men. 
There is a life which gains, from one talent to 
ten, and there is one which loses even that one 
talent because it will not use it well. The waters 
came upon the Egyptians, upon their 

Verses 26-31. 

chariots and upon their horsemen. 
The sea returned in its strength when the morn- 
i?ig appeared. And the waters covered them ; 

1 Psalm xxx. 5. 2 Psalm civ. 20-22. 



EGYPT ENGULFED. 169 

there 1'emained not so much as one. And Israel 
saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore. And 
the people feared the Lord^ and they believed in 
the Lord and in His servant Moses. 

There is a time in every contest with sin 
when it ceases to fight. Egypt was now fully 
conquered, and by means of its own persistent 
assaults. The hour of the power of darkness 
was really that of the defeat of the prince of 
this world, for he came and found nothing in 
the Lord to control. 1 So Egypt could not touch 
Israel. The destruction of Egypt here, like that 
of Sodom and Gomorrah, and like that of the 
tribes afterwards defeated by Israel, shows the 
ending of an older era which had sunk into idol- 
atry, giving place to the new religion given at 
Sinai. 



1 John xiv. 30. 



17° EXODUS, XV. 



SONG OF TRIUMPH. 

In sense of increasing weakness Egypt at- 
tempted to flee, the men apparently mounting 
chapter xv. ^ e horses, but the sea overpowered 

Verses x-19. horses and r i ders# Then as Egypt 

fell Israel rose, and full of faith for the time it 
sang its song of triumph, expressing the vital 
truth that the Lord alone had conquered and 
would reign forever and ever. Probably Moses 
sang the lines first and the male chorus repeated 
the words, while Miriam and the 

Verses 20, 21. 

women, taking their timbrels and 
dancing as they sang, repeated again the words, 
Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed 
gloriously ; the horse and his rider hath He 
thrown into tJie sea. 

Would that Israel might remain in this mood ; 
would that all on earth might thus sing the songs 
of heaven ; but, since such stability of faith lies 
as yet beyond the most of men, so let the seasons 
of brief peace in triumph be fully celebrated with 



AT MAR AH. ijl 



the psalm in the church or on the daily path- 
way, until out of great tribulation men learn at 
last to " follow the Lamb whithersoever He 
goeth," and to " stand in white robes with palms 
in their hands ; and God shall wipe away all tears 
from their eyes." l 

AT MARAH. 

After Israel had been delivered from the 

Egyptians and had sung its song of triumph, 

many weary miles were to be trav- 

Verse 22. 

ersed. Regeneration is not gained 
at baptism, nor by any single experience. It is 
a long and a toilsome process since humanity 
became what it is. The Promised Land was far 
from the Red Sea. Therefore, Moses led Israel 
onward from the Red Sea, and they went out into 
the wilderness of Shier. This wilderness was a 
tract of sand and gravel, a place of tribulation, 
a place of discipline where faith would be proved 

1 Revelation vii. 9, 17. 



172 EXODUS, XV. 



in many ways. There is no progress in life 
unless, through temptations endured, the life 
can learn to choose the good and refuse the 
evil. Our Lord seemed to deserve no such 
trials ; but, without the temptations or attacks 
of evil which went with Him all the way and 
culminated on the cross, He would not have won 
a single victory, nor advanced a step in the 
process of His glorification. " Now is my soul 
troubled, and what shall I say ? Father, save 
me from this hour ? but for this cause came I 
unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. 
Then came the voice saying, I have both glorified 
it and will glorify it again." x ''Sufficient to the 
day is the evil thereof," 2 because a merciful 
Providence permits only that degree of trial 
daily which may make for victory. 

Therefore, to teach this lesson of faith, Israel 
was led into the wilderness of Shur where Hagar 
had had her first trial, 3 and they zvent three days 
in the wilderness and found no water. A time 

1 John xii. 27, 28. 2 Matthew vi. 34. 3 Genesis xvi. 7. 



AT MA RAH. 173 



of great suffering had come, for thev no more 
walked by the canals of sweet Nile water. They 
had probably taken water from the Wells of 
Moses, as they are still called, near the sea, but 
that supply was exhausted, and they were athirst. 
To one who has felt this parching misery the 
spiritual meaning is not hard to explain. The 
" living water" which the Lord described to 
the Samaritan l is the truth of His teaching, 
given to comfort and strengthen the spirit in 
life's journey. Having this, one never thirsts 
because always the uplifting influence of the 
Gospel is felt, but to one in the early stages of 
regenerate life there are seasons of weakness, 
when passion parches the nature and it longs 
like David for a draught of the water of child- 
hood's well. 2 

This route of Israel has been carefully searched 
out, 3 and it is probable that a brackish well of 
white limestone water by which stand two 



'John iv. 10. 2 2 Samuel xxiii. 15. 3 " Desert of the Exo- 
dus," by Palmer. 



174 EXODUS, XV. 



stunted palms is the very place to which they 
came eagerly ; but alas, they could 

Verse 23. 

not drink of the waters, for they were 
bitter ; therefore the name of it was called Marah. 
A life of good is not pleasant to the natural 
man. He tastes the waters of self-sacrifice and 
patient service, and they are bitter. Discourage- 
ment ensues. What shall we drink? 

Verse 24. 

cried the people in despair. There 

was but one remedy, to seek the Lord. This 

was done, and the Lord showed 

Verse 25. 

Moses a tree, and he cast it into the 
waters, and the waters were made sweet. The 
remedy was at hand, as is often the case, but 
despair hides it. 

Something of wood, put. into the water, coun- 
teracted its brackish taste, and made it palatable. 
The honest purpose of fruitbearing, that is, of 
a useful life, takes away the bitterness of any 
duty injuring pride and self love, and makes 
the yoke easy and the burden light. 1 The sorrow 

1 Matthew xi. 30. 



AT MAR AH. 1 75 



is turned into joy when the good deed is done 
with its pain. 1 Israel was happy again. 

And here the lesson was taught as a statute 

and an ordinance, that if they would have faith 

and obey the Lord, He would put 

Verses 25, 26. 

on them none of the diseases put 
upon the Egyptians. I am the Lord that healeth 
thee. The diseases are the plagues, which Israel 
had seen *but had not endured, nor will they 
ever suffer from them if they do right. But 
murmuring and doubting and denying will bring 
on those very plagues. Let Israel beware then. 
And the warning is for all, not to repeat sins of 
disbelief, but from one such experience to take 
the needed lesson that the Lord reigneth and 
will provide. " Lead us not into temptation," 
is the prayer, because men are to shun it, not 
seeking the ways of it, but seeking to be strong 
and constant in faith. One Marah should be 
enough, never to be forgotten, but there are 
still to come the Meribahs at the waters of 
strife. 2 

■JohnxvL 21. 2 Exodus xvii. 7 ; Numbers xx. 13; Psalm 



176 EXODUS, XV. 



REST AT ELIM. 

Again the chastened people move forward 

and presently come to a beautiful valley in which 

were and are many wells and a great 

Verse 27. 

grove of palms — in the symbolic 
language of Scripture twelve springs of water 
and seventy palm trees. Not wells of standing 
water but springs were in Elim, giving abun- 
dant drink, and under the broad, cool shadow 
Israel might enjoy a true Sabbath rest signi- 
fied by seventy, as twelve stands for all those 
sources of refreshing in the Divine Word. 
The name Elim would seem to mean the noble 
growth of the palms as contrasted with the 
scanty herbage of the desert. Such a place in 
life is a garden of the Lord. As one has 
written, — 

To-day 'tis Elim with its palms and wells, 
And happy shade for desert weariness ; 
'Tvvas Marah yesterday, all rock and sand, 
Unshaded solitude and bitterness. 



FED WITH MANNA. 177 



FED WITH MANNA. 

No doubt Israel took its ease at Elim while 
the pasturage lasted. But Sabbaths are prepa- 

chapter rations for new labors and are 
XVL worthily spent only to that end. 

Israel must move on to another beautiful place, 
but by a very difficult road. They must now 
make their way down to the seaside and pass 
among rocks on a narrow stretch between the 
sea on the right and the mountains on the left, 
known as the Wilderness of Sin, perhaps so 
called from places of miry clay. 

They are said to have arrived at this stage 

on the fifteenth day of the second month after their 

departing out of the land of Egypt. 

Verse i. 

Exactly one month has been passed 
upon the road. The passover was eaten on the 
fourteenth day of the first month, and that night 
the movement began. Fourteen suggests a 



178 EXODUS, XVI. 



double sabbath, a completed state ; but fifteen, 
like eight, suggests a new beginning. Thus 
the chronicle of the journeys in Numbers says 
that Israel departed from Egypt on the fifteenth 
day of the first month, 1 and Jeroboam on that 
day of the month began his idolatry at Bethel, 2 
and the mission of John the Baptist began in 
the fifteenth year of Tiberius. 3 And the new- 
departure here was the great change of condi- 
tion by which Israel was fed by the manna daily. 
This is really a step in heavenly progress, to 
come to be conscious that all life is from the 
Lord, the living Bread, and to look forever to 
Him ' for good, and never in vain. But faith- 
less Israel was as usual in despair rather than 
in confidence when the help came as provided 
by the Lord. 

They murmured against Moses and Aaron, they 

said, Would that we had died by the hand of the 

Lord in the land of Egypt, when 

Verses 2, 3. 

we sat by the flesh pots, wlien we 
1 Numbers xxxiii. 3. 2 1 Kings xii. 32. 3 Luke iii. 1. 



FED WITH MANNA. 179 

did eat bread to the full ; for ye Jiave brought 
us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole 
assembly with hunger. Of so little faith were 
they that it never occurred to them to ask 
the Lord for needed aid, but they ignored Him 
and chided His appointed leaders as cruel men. 
Answering these murmurs as always with in- 
finite patience the Lord said, Behold, I will rain 
bread from heaven for you. The 

Verses 4, 5. 

law of the manna then followed : 
the people must go out and gather it every day, 
but on the sixth day they must gather twice as 
much as on other days. 

What are we that you murmur against us ? 
said the two accused ; your murmurings are not 

against us, but against the Lord. 

Verses 6-10. 

Come near before the Loi'd, for He 
hath lieard your "murmurings ; and Israel looked, 
and saw the glory of the Lord. 

They were then told that between the evenings 
(at the very same hour as that of the passover 



EXODUS, XVI. 



feast) they would eat flesh, and in the 

Verse 12. 

morning they would be filled with 
bread. So it was, for q nails came up and covered 
the camp, and hi the morning, when the dew was 
gone up, behold tip on the face of the wilderness a 
small round thing, as the hoar frost on the ground. 
The birds came but once, the manna daily. 
Even now the traveller on such shores may 
find birds, wearied with long flight over the 
water, hovering near the earth and easily taken. 
There is some difference of opinion as to the 
birds or whether they were birds rather than 
flying fish, but little doubt need be felt that 
they were the short winged birds migrating from 
Africa in the Spring and arriving when sorely 
needed. Yet their flesh does not represent the 
permanent heavenly food, but rather that lower 
sort nearer to the passions which means danger 
of excess, as was more fully shown in a sub- 
sequent case when the plague followed the 
feasting. 1 

1 Numbers xi. 33. 



FED WITH MANNA. IS I 

It is the manna which was permanent until 
Israel entered upon its inheritance and ate the 
grain of Canaan. There is a small white exuda- 
tion from the desert shrubs which was valued 
by the people of old and gathered. The Egyp- 
tians called it man or manna, and 

Verse 15. 

when the Israelites said What is it t 
they used in their language the same sound. 

Of course no such supply as was required and 
as was furnished at all seasons for nearly forty 
years was obtainable from shrubs. Israel had 
still their herds and flocks and might sometimes 
get fruits, but for bread dependence must be 
placed upon manna. It is said that it was 
there on the ground in the morning when the 
dew or mist rose before the sun. What could 
it have been but an outward form of that love 
which is " angels' food"! 1 As the Lord took 
five small loaves, and blessed, and distributed 
to thousands, 2 so here the people were fed by 

1 Psalm lxxviii. 25. 2 Matthew xiv. 21. 



i»2 EXODUS, XVI. 

Him and not by the us.ual sowing and reaping. 
The miraculous in earth is the common way in 
heaven, and in the spiritual life while still in 
the flesh men should learn to pray for that daily 
bread of life by which their better part may be 
satisfied. 

The law of the manna is most instructive. 

A proportionate amount was to be gathered, and 

therefore they took up some more 

Verses 16-18. 

and some less according to their 
families, and by observing the rule of the omer 
(about two quarts) for each one, none was wasted. 
Even so according to the need is the Divine 
supply, and no man shall hold buried talents, 1 
nor say to his soul, " Thou hast much goods laid 

up, take thine ease." 2 Therefore 

Verses 19, 20. 

Moses said, Leave nothing of it until 
the morning, but they disobeyed, and it bred 
worms and stank, as good turns to evil in a 
life of waywardness. Morning by morning they 

1 Luke xix. 26. 2 Luke xii. 19. 



FED WITH MANNA. 183 

gathered it — " new mercies every morning " x — 
through the week. Each day the 

Verse si. 

unused part melted and disappeared 
when the sun was hot, to signify that the rise of 
self-love consumes or dissipates the unappropri- 
ated innocence, the state of the sweet, calm 
morning. 

Two portions on the sixth day is the sign of 
growth, of increasing good enabling the soul 

to enter upon its sabbath of rest 

Verses 22-24. 

and peace. And so Moses said, 
Tomorrow is a solemn rest, a holy sabbatli unto 
the Lord ; bake that which ye will bake and seethe 
(or boil) that which ye will seethe ; and all that 
remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the 
morning. Thus does life rise and fall, go forth 
in its effort and return to its rest, and the Lord 
hallows that rest for the sake of the days that 
must follow. Moses warned them solemnly that 
they would find none on the ground on the sab- 

1 Lamentations iii. 22, 23. 



184 EXODUS, XVI. 



bath, but there were faithless ones 

Verses 25-30. 

who went out on that day and found 
none, and they learned of their fault. 

White and sweet as honey was this food, signi- 
fying the purity and delightsomeness of heaven ; 

and Moses, perhaps after the taber- 

Verses 31-34. 

nacle was built, ordered that the 
measure of a day be kept and laid up before the 
Lord, as a testimony to the generations. So 
every good experience makes its record by stor- 
ing up something to remain forever and be a 
bond between the Saviour and the saved. There 
are relics of bones and hair, which in the dark 
ages were treasured and placed in churches and 
thought to have Divine efficacy, but this is idol- 
atry ; the true relic is a sweet remaining evi- 
dence of past blessing, laid up in the consecrated 
heart; so is the simple Christian feast kept "in 
remembrance " of a day when the Lord washed 
His disciples' feet and gave them bread, His 
body, and wine, His blood, that they might live 
in Him and He in them forevermore. 



FED WITH MANNA. 185 

What Israel did outwardly, laying up the pot 
of manna, people are now to do inwardly, keep- 
ing the remembrance of the living Bread which 
came down from heaven to give life unto the 
world, not as the fathers ate manna in the wilder- 
ness and are dead, but as a man eateth and liv- 
eth forever, 1 fed by the Lord, who is way, truth 
and life. 2 

¥ or forty years it is said that Israel was so fed 
because that is the number significant of proba- 
tion, with Moses in Midian, already 

Verse 35. 

explained, with Elijah in the desert, 
and with the Lord in His temptation. And 
they were so fed until they came to a land inhab- 
ited, to the borders of the land of Canaan, for 
that land stands for the end of life's discipline, 
the border of heaven, and it is written in Joshua 
that Israel did not have manna any more, but 
"did eat of the fruit of the land"; 3 and this 
describes that glorious life elsewhere set forth 

1 John vi. 51, 58. 2 John xiv. 6. 3 Joshua v. 12. 



1 86 EXODUS, XVI. 



in the vision of the " tree of life bearing twelve 
manner of fruits, yielding its fruit every month," " 
a life which, as compared to this life's journey 
in the wilderness, is as day to night and as para- 
dise to desert. 

It is remarkable that at this chapter's end, 
after all this important history, there is a little 
verse which the critic looks upon as a mere 
gloss, a late addition. But it also has its spiri- 
tual significance, although it only says that an 
omer is the tenth part of an ephah. 

Verse 36. 

The ephah was a well-known meas- 
ure, the omer is never mentioned in Scripture 
except in this chapter. Why then was it brought 
into use, with this necessary explanation that it 
was equivalent to the tenth of an ephah ? 

Because the tenth part is so significant. Peo- 
ple gave tithes or tenths of all to the priests. 2 
Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek. 3 Jacob 
promised tithes to God if he came in peace from 

1 Revelation xxii. 2. 2 Leviticus xxvii. 30. 3 Genesis 
xiv. 20. 



FED WITH MANNA. 187 

Padan-Aram. 1 With many of the sacrifices a 
tenth deal or tenth part of fine meal was to be 
joined. 2 If only ten righteous were found in 
Sodom, it would be saved. 3 The meaning comes 
to view in the saying of. Isaiah that after the 
cities were destroyed for their iniquity, there 
would be "a tenth, and it would return, like a 
terebinth or an oak whose stock remains when 
they cast their leaves." 4 

This remnant, which is holy and therefore 
safe, is the oraer, the tenth part of the ephah ; 
for what men give to the Lord is saved to them, 
and what they spend for self is lost. What is 
received from the Lord and used in His service 
is measured with the omer, the tenth, and it 
abides forever in the soul which is as a temple 
of the Lord. " Bring ye all the tithes, and 
prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, 
if I will not open you the windows of heaven and 
pour you out a blessing." ■ When the omer was 

1 Genesis xxviii. 22. 2 Numbers xv. 4. 3 Genesis xviii. 
32. 4 Isaiah vi. 13. 5 Malachi iii. 10. 



EXODUS, XVI. 



used to measure the daily food, and when it was 
used again to lay up a remembrance of the 
Divine mercy, then the tenth part of an ephah 
served as the heavenly type of that life, which 
is not self-centered, but is a stewardship ; and 
he who keeps the Communion with his Lord 
receives manna and lays it up, "a treasure in 
the heavens that faileth not, where no thief 
approacheth, neither moth corrupteth." 1 

Such a measure, exemplified in such a life, 
leaves nothing over, for it uses all its powers 
as it should ; and it has no lack because it is 
"rich toward God/' 2 rich in faith, rich in love, 
rich in fruitage of all serviceableness. No dis- 
ease of Egypt, the brutish life, comes upon it. 
Its one gains ten talents, not one buried, but 
ten at work ; it is faithful over its few things 
until it comes into authority over many. 3 It is 
such a life which labors not for "the meat which 



1 Luke xii. 33. 2 Luke xii. 17. 3 Matthew xxv. 21. 



CHAPTER XVII 
Verse i. 



MASS AH AND ME RIB AH. 189 

perisheth, but for that which endureth unto ever- 
lasting life." ' 

MASSAH AND MERIBAH. 

Israel had passed along the eastern shore of 
the Red Sea until the place was reached where 
the route turns from the sea and 
ascends by a pleasant valley to 
the higher ground where Moses had been called 
of God. This valley was called Rephidim, mean- 
ing a place of refreshment. But the season had 
now advanced into summer, there was little water 
to be found except in deep wells, and there was 
no water for the people to drink. 

When this is read the thought that it has 
occurred before arises, and it is not strange that 
it should seem to some that here is only a differ- 
ent account of the event at Marah ; but it is not 
so. At Marah the people found water, but it was 
unfit to drink ; here there is none. There the 

1 John vi. 27. 



190 EXODUS, XVII. 



water must be healed, here it must be produced. 
In both cases the people murmured, 

Verses 2, 3. 

to be sure, but there the likeness 
ceases. Here as before they strove with Moses- : 
they said, Give us water, and they demanded to 
know why he had brought them so far only to 
destroy them, their children and their cattle with 
thirst. This faithless attitude is certainly re- 
peated again and again. It is the attitude of 
the unregenerate mind. It lacks faith because 
it lacks love. In prosperity it forgets to be 
thankful ; in adversity it forgets past help and 
thinks God a liar. If there were not such a 
heart in man we should not have the seeming 
repetitions in this history. 

Evidently this time the rage of the people 

through suffering went farther than before. 

What shall I do ? cried Moses unto 

Verse 4. 

the Lord, they be almost ready to 
stone me. The situation was indeed desperate ; 
but spiritually it is so in every life. Water fails 
when passion parches the nature and no refresh- 



MASS AH AND MEKIBAH. 191 

ing relief from heaven is found. Then men 
hate the conscience that has led them to make 
the effort now defeated. In the extremity of 
temptation the Lord said, " I thirst " ; ' how 
much more must men say so, yet not patiently 
as He said it, but angrily as if to " curse God 
and die." 2 

The answer given to Moses' despairing cry 

was most prompt. Pass on before the people, 

and take with t/iee of the elders of 

Verses 5, 6. 

Isi'ael ; and thy rod, wherewith thou 

smotest the river, take in thy hand, and go. 
Behold, I will sta7id before thee there upon the 
rock in Horeb ; and thou shalt smite the rock, 
and there shall come water out of it, that the 
people 7nay drink. And Moses did so in the sight 
of the elders of Israel. 

The answer to be given to the murmurers was 
spectacular. Moses, taking old men with him, 
moved forward toward a cliff, carrying the sacred 

1 John xix. 28. 2 Job ii. 9. 



t9 2 EXODUS, XVII. 



staff, once in use by him as a shepherd, then 
exalted as the more than kingly sceptre which 
had waved over the Nile and brought forth the 
plagues ; and with this rod he struck the face of 
the rock, and waters gushed out abundantly. 
There was no time to dig wells down to the bed- 
rock along which water was making its way. 
The water stored by winter rains in the moun- 
tain must be had at once, and one blow would 
bring it forth. 

So majestic was this act, and so impressive 
the scene, that it is no wonder that it became 
the theme of psalms — " He smote the rock that 
the waters gushed out, and the streams over- 
flowed;" l u He opened the rock, and the waters 
gushed out ; they ran in dry places like a 
river ; " 2 " He turned the rock into a standing 
water, the flint into a fountain of waters ; " 3 and 
Paul is found saying, " They drank of that spiri- 
tual rock that followed them ; and that Rock was 

1 Psalms lxxviii. 20 ; 2 cv. 41 ; 3 cxiv. 8. 



WAR IN REPHIDIM. 193 

Christ." 1 And this is the spiritual meaning; no 
rock followed them literally, but spiritually the 
Lord is the Rock, and He gives the living water, 
and so refreshes His disciples that they never 
thirst. In His Word is the water of life, and 
men smite it with Moses' rod when they seek 
beneath or behind the history and statute and 
parable for the spirit that quickeneth. 2 Such 
a one drinks of the brook in the way and there- 
fore lifts up the head. 3 

This place of despair was called Massah, 

" proving," and Meribah, " striving," because 

when Israel was thinking to test 

Verse 7. 

-God — Is the Lord among us or not ? 
— in reality He was testing them who were of 
little faith. 

WAR IN REPHIDIM. 

A long rest must have been taken there. 
The valley had become a paradise. Troubles 

1 1 Corinthians x. 4. 2 John vi. 63. 3 Psalm ex. 7. 



194 EXODUS, XVII. 



were forgotten ; shame over unbelief quickly- 
passed ; and content reigned everywhere. But 
they were occupying land claimed by others, by 
the descendants of Esau, 1 and as soon as the 
desert tribe could be gathered they attacked 
Israel. This was a new experience. Death by 
hunger or thirst they had feared, but this danger 
was so much more terrible that fear seemed to 
have paralyzed them. They did not chide 
Moses, they were still in powerlessness. 

Amalek was a great tribe of the desert, and 
Rephidim was their border. They came shout- 
ing on after the Arab manner, sling- 

Verse 8. 

ing stones, shooting arrows, and 
seeking to get within the space where spears 
could be used. It would seem that Israel, sur- 
prised, made no attempt to flee, and that Amalek 
withdrew a little for the morrow's decisive com- 
bat. Their preparations were already made, but 
what could Israel do ? 

1 Genesis xxxvi. 12. 



WAR IN REPHIDIM. 195 

Moses turns to fosliua, who now appears for 

the first time and is called by anticipation by his 

later name, when Oshea, "help," 

Verse 9. 

was joined with the Divine name 
Jehovah, and so formed Jehoshua and then 
Joshua. He it was who would be Moses' suc- 
cessor, the leader of Israel in the conquest of 
Palestine. His name, identical in Hebrew with 
Jesus in Greek, reveals his representative char- 
acter. Moses represents the Divine truth in 
statute, Joshua is that truth in act. The Lord 
Jesus was the Word made flesh, the conqueror 
of evil, the founder of the kingdom of heaven. 
With no earthly weapons did He fight, but with 
" the sword of the spirit, which is the Word 
of God." ' 

Joshua, in the prime of life, must lead in the 

battle — clioose its out men, and go out, fight with 

Amalek ; but Moses, already aged, 

Verse 9. 

will take another part. I will stand 
on the top of the hill with tlie rod of God in my 

1 Ephesians vi. 17. 



196 EXODUS, XVII. 



hand. While some fight others shall pray. 
While the powers of active life struggle in temp- 
tation, the more interior nature, secure on its 
hill, will look up for blessing. Below are the 
din of battle and the pain of wounds, above is 
the power of God wielded by the rod of God. 
While Martha wearies herself with honest striv- 
ing, Mary sits at peace ; * and both these planes 
of life should be developed for good in all. 

So it was done. On the morrow, type of a 

new stage of t experience, Joshua led forth his 

men before the camp, and Moses 

Verse 10. 

and Aaron and Hur zvent up to tlie 
top of the hill. In the work in Egypt Moses 
and Aaron took the lead, representing as was 
shown the Divine Law or Word and its true 
interpretation. Why is a third man, Hur, added 
to them here ? Little is known of him except 
that he was of Judah, not Levi, and was the 
grandfather of Bezaleel who was given skill to 



1 Luke x. 39. 



WAR IN REPHIDIM. 197 

do the embroidered work of the Tabernacle. 1 
Thus Hur was an old man, and it is said later 
that he was left with Aaron in charge of the 
people when Moses went up into the mount. 2 
There is much tradition about Hur, and he is 
known to have afterwards occupied Bethlehem ; 3 
but he appears in this connection only as a 
companion of Aaron, an elder as Aaron was a 
priest, thus representing the application of truth 
as well as its teaching. 

The battle was joined, one side pushing the 

other back and in turn yielding ground. For 

it is said that, when Moses held up his hand, 

Israel prevailed ; and when he let 

Verse 11. 

down his hand, Amalek prevailed. 
This is prayer, bringing down into the life the 
grace of God and giving victory over evil ; or 
on the other hand, being intermitted, and then 
evil prevails. It is the alternation of life in 
constancy and in negligence. 

1 Chapter xxxi. 2. 2 Chapter xxiv. 14. 3 1 Chronicles iv. 4. 



198 EXODUS, XVII. 



If there shall be complete victory, the whole 

day must be given to it, and therefore when 

Moses' hands were heavy, they took 

Verses 12, 13. 

a stone, and put it under him, and 
lie sat thereon ; and Aaron and Hur stayed up 
his hands, the one on the one side, and the other 
on the other side ; and his hands were steady 
until the going down of the sun, and Joshua dis- 
comfited Amalek and his people with the edge 
of the sword. How significant the scene, this 
double life of the internal and external man 
represented by the one group on the hill-top 
and the other in the battle below. Raphael 
has painted the glory of, the Transfiguration on 
the mountain and at its foot the father with 
his suffering son among the helpless disciples. 
So the Lord was often in mountains for prayer, 
and came down again to heal the diseased and 
obsessed. 

A signal victory it was, and one never to be 

forgotten. The Lord said to Mos-es, Write this 

for a memorial in a book and re- 

Verse 14. 

hearse it in the ears of Joshua, tliat 



WAR IN RE PHI DIM. 199 

/ will attterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek 
from tinder lieaven. There were numerous tribes 
remaining from the older civilization, and some 
of these, like the Hittites of Hebron who sold 
Abraham the tomb, or like those Midianites 
who received Moses among them, were friendly 
to Israel ; but others were utterly opposed. In 
other words by some of the tribes, the promises 
made to Abraham and his seed were received 
with respect as true, but others rejected them 
and set themselves to defeat them. In the 
latter class Amalek w r as prominent, represent- 
ing false and perverted thinking full of hatred 
of Divine law. With this spirit in one's self no 
compromise can be made ; it must be uprooted, 
and therefore Israel must give no quarter to 
Amalek then or at any time, or it would be itself 
destroyed. In a later passage Amalek is spoken 
of as smiting "the hindmost, all the feeble be- 
hind" Israel, 1 implying that, although defeated, 

1 Deuteronomy xxv. iS. 



200 EXODUS, XVIII. 

Amalek hung about the march killing any who 
could not keep up. So does evil seek the weaker 
places and like a beast of prey seizes on those 
less strong in righteousness. 

In token of this great deliverance Moses built 

of loose stones an altar in Rephidim and called 

it, The Lord is my banner, and this 

Verses 15, 16. 

he did because they were now 
soldiers of the Lord against Amalek from genera- 
tion to generation — forever. To build an altar 
is to consecrate a state of life, to give the glory 
of a victory to the Lord, and to register a vow 
that His cause shall be the cause of His faithful 
servants. 

VISIT OF MIDIANITES. 

In strict accordance with the rule of spiritual 
life, reward followed trial ; the crown after the 

chapter cross - Israel received another visit, 
xviii. k ut j 10W c jjff eren t its spirit ! Ama- 
lek had come to destroy, Midian came to do 
good. In His temptation the Lord had first the 



VISIT OF MIDIANITES. 



enemy and then the friend before Him — "the 
devil leaveth Him, and angels came and minis- 
tered unto Him." l So here Amalek retires in 
defeat, and Midian comes in peace to bless. 

After the manner of the country Jethro sent 

word to Moses that he and Moses' wife and 

sons drew near to greet him, and 

Verses 1-6. 

Moses went out to meet his father-in- 
law^ and did obeisa?iee, and kissed him ; and they 
asked eaeJi other of their welfare^ and they came 

into the tent. Here is the relation 

Verse 7. 

of warm friendship. Midian repre- 
sented the best preserved traces of the older 
religion. Its people were still serving God. 
Its heart was warm for Israel whom God had 
saved. Like John the Baptist, the Jew, saying 
of the Christ, " He must increase, I must 

decrease," 2 Midian heard the story 

Verses 8-11. 

of the deliverance, and blessed God 
for it, and declared that Jehovah was greater than 



1 Matthew iv. 11. 2 John iii. 30. 



202 EXODUS, XVI II. 

all gods. Not only this, but as priest of his 

people Jethro offered a sacrifice, and invited 

Aaron and the elders to the feast. 

Verse 12. 

The simple yet solemn meal of the 
desert sheik stands for that union of hearts, the 
communion of saints, so essential to the Lord's 
kindgdom on earth, and therefore provided for 
in the Holy Supper. The wife of Moses now 
rejoins him to represent the affection for truth 
which the approach to the mountain of God 
requires. In strife against temptation men use 
the intellect lest they be deceived, but the subse- 
quent peace brings forth distinctly the element 
of love. 

But this visit of Midian had a use to perform, 

and this use was seen on the morrow which Moses 

spent, as always when not on the 

Verses 13-23. 

march, in hearing and deciding the 
problems of the people in all kinds of difficulty. 
They stood by him from the morning unto the 
evening. In the advancing life a thousand per- 
plexing questions arise, and it is hard to get at 



VISIT OF MIDIANITES. 203 

the right and wrong of them. What is the 
remedy ? That comes by the Divine Providence 
in its own time. In the loving atmosphere now 
about Moses the word of wisdom was heard. 
He must divide the people and arrange them by 
thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens, and set over 
these able men, fearing God, men of truth hating 
unjust gain, and let the?n judge the people at all 
seasons. This is order, the beautiful ordering of 
heavenly life, where is such subordination of less 
to greater that the Divine law rules throughout, 
governing the lower by the higher. Exactly 
as it is in the body where every part owns 
allegiance to the rest and obeys the controlling 
will — "the whole body fitly joined together and 
compacted by that which every joint supplieth, 
according to the effectual working in the meas- 
ure of every part, maketh increase of the body 
unto the edifying of itself in love." * 

Jethro's good advice, immediately acted upon, 

1 Ephesians iv. 16. 



204 . EXODUS, XVIII. 

was most beneficent, and Israel, which had 
been a mere mass of people, became a nation 
with effective government. The great causes 
were to come to Moses himself, and only those. 
His power would be enhanced, because he could 
attend fully to the most important matters. The 
mind, distracted with many anxieties, gets on 
very slowly, if at all ; but when order is estab- 
lished it turns to essential things most effec- 
tively. To the question, why did this system 
come through Midian and not direct from God, 
the answer is that He gave no unneeded word, 
and that Midian was an old race full of expe- 
rience which could instruct a younger one like 
Israel, as if a son. 

Moses did as he was advised, and all went 

well. And Moses let his father-in-law depart ; 

and he went iiito his own land. 

Verses 24-26. 

This seems surprising, for Moses 
certainly needed the wise counsel of Jethro, but 
does it not mark the very wisdom of Jethro that 
he desired to go away rather than to remain 



VISIT OF MIDIANITES. 205 

in the attitude of a guide ? John the Baptist 
did not cease his work to go with the Lord. 
The angels do not impose their care upon men. 
They come when most needed and give impor- 
tant aid, and then they go their way again, as 
the angels at Bethlehem gave their glorious 
hymn of praise to the shepherds, and then 
"went away from them into heaven." 1 

Amalek, it is written, lingered to harass Israel ; 
not so Midian, because Midian really loved Israel. 
Therefore the two parted in love, and each went 
his way, Midian back to the shnple, righteous 
life beneath the stars, and Israel without further 
delay to the mount of God, there to receive its 
high commission. So, with contact with both 
friend and foe, the advancing life gradually leaves 
its Egypt far behind, and reaches its first great 
goal, the sense of the near presence of God, the 
shining of His light in the mind. So is it true 
that men pass, 

" To where beyond these voices there is peace." 
1 Luke ii. 15. 



2o6 EXODUS, XIX. 



BEFORE THE MOUNT. 

In leaving Israel Egypt had not gone straight 

to Canaan, for it was too weak to expel the tribes 

already there ; it was led first to 

CHAPTER XIX. 

the mountain of God, not only to 
become inured to the desert life, but also and 
more especially to receive its commission as a 
nation and as a nation destined to a peculiar 
office. Accordingly on the day of his appoint- 
ment to be the national leader Moses had been 
told to bring the people to Sinai so that they 
might worship there. 1 Thither therefore they 
came after such experiences as typify a life of 
spiritual progress. 

In the third month after the children of Israel 

were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the 

same day came they into the wilder- 

Verse i. 

ness of Sinai. In three months to 
a day they had covered the distance of about 

1 Chapter iii. 12. 



BEFORE THE MOLWT. 207 

three hundred miles, and for many months they 

were to rest here. The group of mountains has 

at its centre four small valleys converging, and 

these would give space for the camp. 

Verse 2. 

On the south side of this space Ras 
Sufsafeh, " cliff of the willow," rises abruptlv. 
Here they camped before the mount. 

The number three marks completeness, as has 
long been seen. The trine in God, Father, Son 
and Spirit, are represented in the soul, body and 
action in man. Nothing in life is complete 
unless it has bes;un in the will, and advanced 
by the intellect into a plan of action, and so 
ultimated itself in effect. The Lord's predic- 
tion that He would rise on the third day 1 was 
in keeping with the symbolism of this number 
throughout Scripture. His three appearances 2 
to the disciples after His resurrection fixed the 
first day of the week as " the Lord's day " 3 and 
perfected the proof of His victory. Most appro- 

1 Matthew xvi. 21. 2 John xxi. 14. 3 Revelation i. 10. 



2o8 EXODUS, XIX. 



priately therefore, under the full moon of the 
third month after leaving Egypt, Israel pitched 
its tents among the mountains, now denuded, 
then probably verdure clad. There they lifted 
up their eyes to the hills whence came their 
strength, 1 no doubt conceiving of God as making 
His home in this impressive stronghold. 

Then Moses went up unto God, and God called 

unto him out of the mountain. The final going 

up of Moses into the mountain to 

Verse 3. 

remain forty days and to bring 
down the ten precepts written on stone tablets, 
came later. At first he must learn how to 
prepare the people for the revelation to come. 
He probably went toward the spot where the 
bush had gleamed on his sight when a shepherd, 
and there by the voice of an angel God told him 
what to say to Israel : 

Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, 
and how I bare you on eagle *-s wings and brought 

1 Psalm cxxi. 1. 



BEFORE THE MOUNT. 



you unto myself. By this powerful image was 
Israel impressed with the thought of 

Verse 4. r fe 

its own helplessness to escape from 
Egypt and to go all this way save as God carried 
it. " As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth 
over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, 
taketh them, beareth them on her wings, the 
Lord alone did lead him," sang Moses near the 
end of his life ; l and because the Lord had done 
all this He now unfolded His purpose in it all. 

If faithful, Israel is to be a peculiar treasure 
above all peoples •, a kingdom of priests, a holy 

nation. Not that Israel was better 

Verses 5, 6. 

than other nations, much less that 
God rejected other nations through partiality 
to it ; it was later distinctly told that it was 
chosen not for its " righteousness or upright- 
ness of heart, for it was a stiffnecked people." 2 
Israel was ignorant of God, slow to believe in 
Him, prone to idolatry, and base in every 

1 Deuteronomy xxxii. 11. 2 Deuteronomy ix. 5, 6. 



2io EXODUS, XIX. 



thought ; yet it had a peculiar capacity to stand 
as the representative of the true church that was 
to be, to perform with exactness symbolic rites, 
and to preserve with extraordinary diligence the 
written Word. This had been foreseen. It had 
been made known four hundred years before to 
Abraham. It was now to be consummated at 
Horeb. 

Moses came down and told the elders what he 

had heard. In awe they promised obedience to 

every word. And this Moses again 

Verses 7-12. 

bore back to the mount. Then 
came the definite command that they be ready 
against the third day, for then the Lord would 
meet with them. 

On that third day with clean garments and 
bodies they must stand before the mount. They 

must not go up into it, nor touch the 

Verses 13-15. 

face of it lest they die. The sound 
of the trumpets exceeding loud will summon the 
people. For every event the heart must be pre- 
pared, and this is especially true of the religious 
life, for the mind tends to neglect its spiritual 



BEFORE THE 310UXT. 



interests and to sink itself in worldliness. In 

Israel only an outward purity was enjoined; but 
this, which was all that could be expected of it, 
was significant of inward purification and of that 
three days during which the Lord put off all the 
nature open to temptation and wounds, and was 
glorified in His Divine incorruption. 

Then came the day of days : when it was morn- 
ing there ice re thunders and lightnings, and a 
thick cloud upon the mount \ and the 

Verses 16-18. 

voice of a trumpet exceeding loud ; 
and all the people that were in the camp trembled. 
And Moses brought fortJi the people out of the camp 
to meet God ; and they stood at the nether side of 
the mount. And mount Sinai was altogether on 
a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in 
fire ; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke 
of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. 
What a contrast is here with a day when the 
Lord "seeing the multitudes, went up into the 
mountain, and sat down, and opened His mouth, 
and taught, saying, Blessed are the poor in 
spirit ! M Yet the Divine love was the same and 



EXODUS, XIX. 



only changed its form in adaptation to the 
two eras. 

To Israel God must speak in this portentous 
manner, or His words would have no effect. 
Even when He spake so, the effect was not 
lasting. Of our Lord the Jews demanded signs 
because they were still " a wicked and adulterous 
generation," l and therefore in mercy signs were 
given at Horeb. The precepts which they were 
to receive would not be so impressive to them as 
the manner in which they were given. Egypt 
virtually had these precepts and included them in 
the funeral ritual of the judgment of a departed 
soul. But they were now to be given to Israel 
as its fundamental law, and given most distinctly. 
The quaking of the mount, the thunder, the 
lightning, the peal of trumpets, were so many 
signs of the supreme dignity of the laws and 
show how truth uttered in heaven may rever- 
berate on earth, as was said when a voice spoke 
to the Lord in Jerusalem, "the people that stood 



1 Matthew xvi. 4. 



BEFORE THE MOUNT. 213 

by and heard it said that it thundered." l The 
influences of heaven come to those who love them 
as gently as any summer breeze, but to those who 
are not of the heavenly mind there are " light- 
nings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earth- 
quake, and very great hail." 2 

There upon the mount in the midst of the 

portents God answered Moses by a voice, and 

called Moses up into the mount, and 

Verses 19, 20. 

Moses went up. The traveller now 
sees on one side of the steep cliff a narrow defile 
by which one may pass into the higher reaches of 
the mountain, and that was probably the path 
taken by Moses. 

He was told to go down again and warn the 
people to stand in their places, and not to break 

through to gaze, and the priests also 

Verses 21, 22. 

must sanctify themselves lest they 
die. In an age and country of marked irrever- 
ence such caution seems unreal, but often after- 
wards Israel learned the risk of disrespect for 

x John xii. 29 2 Revelation xi. 19. 



2 14 EXODUS, XIX. 



sacred things, as when the fire of the altar con- 
sumed the rebellious men who offered incense in 
the spirit of strife, 1 or when a man put his hand 
upon the ark and fell dead. 2 

Moses declared for the people that the caution 

was needless, but he learned in time how little 

they could be trusted. The Lord 

Verses 23-25. 

then said that Moses and Aaron 
alone might come up, but not the priests nor the 
people ; implying that they two as before were to 
be the means of teaching the people and their 
priests. So do the Scripture and its true inter- 
pretation stand between God and men, and 
thereby He comes near to them with blessing and 
not with judgment. 



'Numbers xvi. 35. 2 2 Samuel vi. 7. 



THE DECALOGUE, 215 



THE DECALOGUE. 

So far as appears here, the commandments were 

not first read to the people from tablets, but were 

chapter xx ora ^y given by Moses on that great 

verses 1-3. third day, and to them were joined 
other statutes. The ten form the head of them 
all. They divide themselves as is well known 
into two parts, one showing man's duty to God, 
the other man's duty to man. As it was Jehovah 
God who had brought them out of Egypt they 
must have no other gods ■, and it is to be noted that 
the Lord does not come before men as One who 
has done nothing and yet demands their worship, 
but as the One who has done and is doing every- 
thing to deliver them from sin, and so deserves 
their cooperation in gratitude. 

To make a graven image is to take some quality 

of the nature and cultivate that, like beauty or 

strength, to the neglect of real piety. 

Verses 4-6. 

God is jealous in this sense that He 
is true to Himself, and consequently to do right 



216 EXODUS, XX. 



prospers and to do wrong is harmful; but the 
effect of wrong doing descends but little way 
compared with that of righteousness in which is 
the eternal power of God. 

Blasphemy is guilty of dethroning 

Verse 7. 

God and so is destructive to man. 
The sabbatli was already well known, but its 
observance is enforced anew for all, meaning that 
in the spiritual .life all parts must 

Verses 8-11. 

be given opportunity to develop. 
Even the Lord rests from His labors with men, 
leading them through six days of discipline to the 
seventh, that is, to the peace of heaven. 

By honoring the father and motJier is meant 

to serve the Lord and the church in their united- 

ness, for so men may live an enlarg- 

Verse ia. 

ing life. 
To commit murder is to destroy spiritual life ; 
adultery is mingling good and evil in life ; steal- 
ing is depriving others of values 

Verses 13-17. 

in innocence and faith and peace. 
Bearing false witness is making wrong appear to 
be right. Coveting lies within the mind and is 



LAW OF THE ALTAR. 217 

not an outward act. Evidently men covet when 
they seek to do evil but dare not, and so are 
really in the evil. Thus the Decalogue was 
completed. 

LAW OF THE ALTAR. 

When these words were heard the people 

trembled, and drew back, and begged of Moses 

to speak for them with God, since 

Verses 18-21. 

they would die if they heard Him. 
Moses reassured them, saying that God had come 
to prove them that they sin not. Then Moses 
again ascended and heard many precepts applic- 
able to worship and life. 

One of these concerned the altar to be of 
earth, not of hewn stone, for this would spoil the 

altar ; nor were they to build up 

Verses 22-26. 

steps to it. The meaning is that 
the soft, gentle heart truly worships the Lord ; 
but not an artificially formed system of truth, 
with no purpose of fruitfulness. To go up by 
steps is vain show, and this would disclose the 
shame of pretence. 



2l8 EXODUS, XXI. 



LAW OF SERVANTS. 

There is a command as to a purchased servant, 
showing that the custom prevailed of giving one's 
chapter xxi. body as a surety for debt. Six 

verses 1-6. y ears of service would bring liberty, 
which means that a quality at first requiring 
restraint grows to free exercise. The servant 
refusing liberty has his ear bored to signify the 
subordination of a quality not ready for liberty. 

So with a daughter sold by a man. Her rights 

were fully guarded, and any injustice set her free. 

Here is a lesson of preserving every 

Verses 7-1 1. 

subordinate affection from injury. 



LAW OF RETALIATION. 

Several sins follow, all to be punished with 

death, purposely wounding a man, smiting father 

or mother, stealing and selling a 

Verses 12-17. 

man, cursing father or mother; be- 
cause all these sins represent evils fatal to spiri- 
tual life. 



OTHER LAWS. 



Other commands relate to the effect of quar- 
rels > of scourging a servant, of injuring an unborn 
child, and of disfiguring a servant. 

Verses 18-27. 

Here is the penalty of life for life, 
eye for eye, and so on, and that is the law of that 
plane of life on which Israel stood, the law of 
retaliation. 

Again the dangerous ox, the pit not protected 

from an animal falling in, and the injuring of one 

animal by another are provided 

Verses 28-36. . . 

against, tor the law or the Lord is 
a protection against harm to anything of spiritual 
value. 

OTHER LAWS. 

So stealing is fully punished, perhaps by death, 
at least by restoring more than was taken, to 
chapter xxii signify the duty of all to repair the 

verses 1-19. harm they do. So of injuring a 
field and its restitution. So of harm done by 
fire. So of anything entrusted to another and 
lost. The remedy must be adequate ; and so in 
case of an animal in another's keeping. And 



220 EXODUS, XXII. 



again sins against innocence were punished. 
Nor must a sorceress be allowed to live, because 
there comes in the danger of evil spirits con- 
trolling people of this world to their injury in 
slavish subjection. 

To sacrifice to another god would 

Verse 20. 

be death, for spiritually it destroys 
man. 

To the stranger, to the widow and orphan, and 

to the poor man the law was very kind. No 

one might oppress them, and the 

Verses 21-27. 

debtor's garment in pledge must go 
back to him before night. This shows that 
unmercifulness is net known in true life. 

No unfaithfulness was permitted, to God or a 

ruler, and there must be no delay An making the 

offerings. The claim of God on the 

Verses 28-30. 

firstborn is a most important provi- 
sion on account of the prevalence of child sac- 
rifice, of the firstborn for the rest ; and when 
the firstborn is given to the Lord, that means 
a holy beginning of the life's whole development. 
The priest gave back the child, but it was still 



JUSTICE FOR ALL. 221 

the Lord's, and was redeemed with a lamb or 
two doves as the child Jesus was redeemed. 1 The 
same rule held of the increase of cattle. 

Be holy men tmto Me, said the Lord, eat noth- 
ing torn by beasts in the field, for that is carrion, 
and carrion represents the dead and 

Verse 31. 

worthless affections spoiled by pas- 
sions. 

JUSTICE FOR ALL. 

There must be no false speaking, for misrep- 
resentation stands for a false life ; nor any per- 
chapter xxiii. vers i° n of justice even for a. poor 

verses 1-3. man s sake, since that mingles kind- 
ness with dishonor. 

The animals of others must be 

Verses 4, 5. 

cared for, showing that neighborli- 
ness is essential. 

There must be no oppression of the weak 
and no bribery, for injustice signi- 

Verses 6-9. 

fies cruelty, which is infernal. 
1 Luke ii. 22-24. 



22 2 EXODUS, XXIII. 

The fields must have their Sabbath, that is, 
a seventh year of rest, typifying 

Verses 10-13. 

a hallowed, peaceful life. 

ANNUAL FEASTS. 

Three great annual feasts must be kept ; 2tn- 

leavened bread, or Passover, in the spring ; first 

fruits, afterwards called Pentecost, 

Verses 14-19. 

in early summer; and ingathering, 
also known as Tabernacles ; thus representing 
a life acknowledging the Lord at every stage. 
Leavened bread must not be offered with the 
flesh, for that signifies a mixture of evil motive. 
Keep not the burnt offering until the next day, 
for that means holding for self what is God's. 
The very first fruits must be brought, thus 
placing religion always first. 'And they must not 
boil a kid in its mother s milk, for this repre- 
sents mixing old states with more innocent new 
ones. 



PROMISES RENEWED. 223 



PROMISES RENEWED. 

At the close of these precepts are sweet prom- 
ises. The Lord's anget would lead them, and they 
must honor him. The Lord would 

Verses 20-33. 

be an enemy to their enemies. He 
would drive out their foes. They must serve 
Him, and ^not the idols, and if they obeyed, 
there would be no sickness. His terror and his 
hornet would go before them, and little by little 
their enemies would give place. A great land 
would be theirs, from the Red Sea eastward to 
the Mediterranean westward, and from the desert 
southward up to the Euphrates. Only they must 
drive out idolaters, and not dwell among them, 
and so be corrupted. 

How beautiful a life prospect ! Angels lead- 
ing, obstacles withdrawing, no weakness, no 
despair, no disaster, a gradually enlarging field 
of service, if only no compromise with sin be 
made. The terror and the hornet represent the 
effect upon evil and falsity of the Lord's power 



224 EXODUS, XXIII. 

in the soul. Nothing can stand before it. As 
the Lord said to the seventy, " Behold, I give 
you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, 
and over all the power of the enemy; and noth- 
ing shall by any means hurt you." I So shall 
men go "from strength to strength," 2 from the 
strength of obedience to law and humiliation 
before God to the strength of abiding in the 
Lord and the everlasting joy which is His. 
The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews felt 
this when he said to the early Christians, "Ye 
are not come to the mount that burned with 
fire, nor to blackness and darkness and tempest, 
and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of 
words, so that Moses said, I exceedingly fear ; 
but ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto 
the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusa- 
lem, to innumerable hosts of angels and to Jesus 
the mediator of the new covenant. See that ye 
refuse not Him." 3 



1 Luke x. 19. 2 Psalm lxxxiv. 7. 3 Hebrews xii. 18-25. 



THE WRITTEN COVENANT. 225 



THE WRITTEN COVENANT. 

Upon the arrival of Israel at the mount of God 

three days were given to preparation for that 

great event of meeting with God. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Ihen came the clouds and light- 
nings and words as of a trumpet, and God spoke 
through Moses to the people the laws of the 
Jewish religion. Having so done, concluding 
with promises of blessing if the laws were obeyed, 
the Lord let them disperse to their tents ; but 
ere long came a new revelation, for laws were 
not enough, and institutions of worship by a 
priesthood were next to be given. Such institu- 
tions seem of little present importance until it 
is seen that the ceremonies of Israel, like its 
experiences and its laws, bear a lasting signifi- 
cance and contain inspired lessons. A form 
indeed was the Jewish church, a set of repre- 
sentative rites merely, yet a form so perfect as 
to be for all time, when "spiritually discerned," r 

1 Corinthians ii. 14. 



226 EXODUS, XXIV. 

the symbol of essential religion. The New Testa- 
ment is the unsealing of the Old Testament. 

Moses was again called into the mount, this 

time with a company of chosen men — thou and 

Aaron, 'Nadab and Abihu, and sev- 

Verses i, 2. 

enty of the elders of Israel ; but 
Moses alone should come near unto the Lord, nor 
should the people go up at all. 

Already the development of the church is 
visible. Not only Aaron, but his sons Nadab 
and Abihu are named, showing the emergence 
of the priesthood. These two sons were after- 
wards slain in rebellion and profanation, 1 but 
for a season they were faithful. The elders, 
presage the grand council of the nation, that 
council which condemned the Lord. Through 
these men, Moses, Aaron, his sons, the elders — 
the Lord made His will known, showing how in 
Divinely ordered revelation the Word of God 
comes down. 

Being about to leave them for a time, and 

1 Leviticus x. i, 2. 



THE WRITTEN COVENANT. 227 

for the first time since he had become their 
leader, Moses told them all the 

Verses 3, 4. 

words of the Lord and the judgments, 
and they answered, All the words which the Lord 
hath spoken will we do. Not only this, but Moses 
wrote all the words of the Lord. It is common 
to doubt this statement, and some call in ques- 
tion the existence of Moses, but it is plain that, 
if one begins here to doubt, there is no end 
until one is landed in the absurd conclusion of 
a self-evolved Judaism which had neither Author 
nor revelator, which would be like a Mohamme- 
danism without any Mohammed or a Christi- 
anity without any Christ. As to the doubt about 
Moses' ability to write, documents written four 
centuries before his time are now known by the 
hundred. 

Having so written, Moses rose up early in the 

morning, and built an altar under the mount, and 

twelve pillars according to the twelve 

Verse 4. 

tribes. This was their second altar, 
again a step forward in the development of the 
rites of Israel. Of course sacrificial worship is 



228 EXODUS, XXIV. 

all that Israel can practise. It does not know- 
that "to obey is better than sacrifice, and to 
hearken than the fat of rams " ; ! and it supposes 
its God to be "pleased with thousands of rams/' 
yes, even with slain "firstborn." 2 Pillars like 
these have been uncovered at Gezer and else- 
where. 

A great sacrifice then took place of burnt 
offerings and peace offerings ', every animal cor- 
responding to some affection to be 

Verse 5. 

consecrated to the service of the 
Lord. Thus the lamb corresponds to innocence, 
the ox to patient service, the dove to harmless 
thought. The two offerings were of oxen, slain 
by strong young men, as the functions of the 
Levites had not yet been appointed, and the 
burning represents a warm and willing purpose 
to serve the Lord, which purpose He responds 
to with His peace. 

In furtherance of his preparation for leaving 
them, Moses put the blood into two receptacles, 

1 1 Samuel xv. 22. 2 Micah vi. 7. 



IN THE MOUNT. 229 

from one of which he sprinkled the altar and 
from the other the people, and read 

Verses 6-8. 

to them his written covenant, that is, 
the words of the four preceding chapters, and 
said to them, Behold the blood of the covenant 
which the Lord hath made with you concerning 
all these words. To this again the people prom- 
ised to be obedient. And this was the old cove- 
nant or testament as Christianity is the new, 
and both express the infinite love of God going 
to meet the great needs of men. 

IN THE MOUNT. 

After all this ceremonial, which might have 

endured in the minds of the people but did not 

endure, Moses turned from them 

Verses 9, 10 

and led his chosen company into 
the mount. And there, it is said, they saw 
the God of Israel, under His feet as it were a 
paved work of sapphire stone, and as it were 
the very heaven for clearness. There is no de- 
scription of a face or figure except as feet are 



230 EXODUS, XXIV. 



named. There was apparently something of an 
angelic form revealed so that Israel to the 
number of these persons might know that God 
was the father of the sons of men, but dazzling 
light veiled Him while its brilliant clearness 
impressed them. It was as if they looked into 
the sky of blue, the color of the sapphire, and 
saw One there as Ezekiel saw "the likeness 
of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire 
stone, and upon the throne the likeness of the 
appearance of a man. This was the appearance 
of the likeness of the glory of the Lord." * 

There is a seeming contradiction between this 
statement and that of the Gospel that " No man 
hath seen God at any time " ; 2 and again between 
the later saying that Moses saw God "face to 
face " 3 and the declaration of the Lord that men 
had not heard the voice of the Father, " nor seen 
His shape " ; 4 but men spoke of their seeing the 
Lord before His incarnation when they saw an 

1 Ezekiel i. 26, 28. 2 John i. 18. 3 Chapter xxxiii. 11. 
4 John v. 37. 



IN THE MOUNT. 231 

angel who w^s filled with His spirit for the time. 
This may be seen, for example, in the account 
of Gideon, to whom "an angel of the Lord 
came," and of this angel it is said, "the Lord 
looked on Gideon." l 

It is told that the Lord laid not His hand upon 
them ; they beheld God, and did eat and dtink, not 
only indicating that they were not harmed, but 
also probably that they went down and joined 
in the sacrificial feast with the people. Israel 
now believed in God, and meant to obey Him, 
and therefore did not fear to stand before Him 
and to rejoice before Him. It was when dis- 
obedience made them feel that God hated them, 
that it was declared that no one could see God 
and live. 2 

Now Moses will go up for his longer stay, 

necessary to learn of the tabernacle and the 

priestly rites, and this time he will 

Verses 12-14. 

take only Jos hua his minister. Not 
even Aaron can go, for he and Hur, his com- 

1 Judges vi. 11, 14. 2 Chapter xxxiii. 20. 



232 EXODUS, XXIV. 

panion at the battle of Rephidim, must take 
charge of the people. To the elders who were 
their judges Moses said, Tarty ye here: behold, 
Aaron and Hur are with yon. Joshua (Greek 
Jesus) will be associated after this with Moses 
and at last will succeed him. They represent 
the Divine and the Divine Human aspects of 
truth, the Word as it is in itself and "the Word 
made flesh," the one telling the way of life, the 
other leading in it. Into the clond and the glory 
they went, and were in it for six 

Verses 15-18. 

days, a further preparation for a 
sublime sabbath or seventh day ; and on that day 
Moses entered into the midst of the clond, and 
there he remained forty days and forty nights, 
representing completed states of instruction here, 
as the same number implied fulness of discipline 
for Israel in the wilderness, and of peace for it 
when we read more than once of a " rest of forty 
years." x 

1 Judges iii. 11 ; v. 31 ; viii. 28. 



OFFERINGS OF ISRAEL. 233 



OFFERINGS OF ISRAEL. 

In the beginning of the communication to 
Moses now following he was told to gather from 
chapter xxv. the P eo P le offerings, from every man 

verses 1-7. m fiose heart maketJi hint willing ; 
and these offerings were to consist of gold, silver 
and copper, of spun yarns of wool ready for weav- 
ing and dyed in colors blue and red, of white 
linen, of dyed skins of sheep and goats, of acacia 
woody of oil and fragrant herbs, and of precious 
stones to be set and graven. 

All these were of Israel's wealth and were 
given to be the material out of which to con- 
struct their sanctuary precisely ac- 

Verses 8, 9. 

cording to the pattern about to be 
shown out of heaven. This is the order of life. 
God constructs the church out of willing hearts. 
If men bring not the qualities represented by 
these offerings, nothing can be done. While 
Divine love gives men everything that is good, 
they must act in their liberty to consecrate what 



234 EXODUS, XXV. 



they receive, or there is no temple. " Ye have 
robbed me in tithes and offerings," l said the 
Lord by the prophet to unfaithful Israel, and 
so they had robbed themselves of all that made 
for the better life now and hereafter. 

Many have studied this description of taber- 
nacle and furniture, but few have approached the 
study from the oriental side, and none have kept 
strictly to the account, adding some timbered 
roof or other occidental element wholly out of 
place. The description goes straightforward 
without uncertainty or repetition. The con- 
struction before the mind's eye, and the inter- 
pretation, must do the same for this significant 
structure. 

ARK AND MERCY-SEAT. 

The ark or chest comes first as the heart of 

the whole. It will be made of acacia wood from 

the prevailing tree, and according 

Verses 10-15. 

to cubit measure. The cubit, like 
the foot or hand-breadth, is a primitive measure 

1 Malachi iii. 8. 



ARK AND MERCY-SEAT. 235 

— from the elbow to the end of the hand — and 
is about a foot and a half English. Overlaying 
the ark with gold probably means a very thin 
plating. A ring was to be placed near each 
corner in such a way that a pole or staff could 
be run through on either side to bear it between 
four men. These staves were to be always in 
place and never used otherwise. This chest 
was made to contain the two stone tablets of 
the Decalogue, and so it obtained its sanctity. 
The law on stone is the fixed and inflexible 
order of the universe. The inclosing wood is 
the heart holding the law precious. The gold 
used throughout represents love to the Lord, 
the highest motive known to man. To bear 
this ark in marching to Canaan is to go onward 
in life led by pure religion to repeated victories 
over sin. 

The lid of the ark was to be called the mercy- 
seat or throne of God. On this lid at either 
end would stand a cherub or angelic 

Verses 17-22. 

form having extended wings meet- 
ing in the centre as the cherubim faced. This 



236 EXODUS, XXV. 



lid was to be placed upon the ark and the testi- 
mony or tablets within, and then from the space 
between the wings the Lord would meet with 
Israel and commune with them. And this for 
the reason that the heart so fixed in purest love 
is the very abode of the Lord. " This is my rest 
forever ; here will I dwell, for I have desired 
it." 1 "I dwell in the high and holy place, with 
him also who is of a humble and contrite heart." 2 
The ark of Noah was as it were a ship, and the 
ark of Moses in the reeds was a basket, but the 
meaning is similar that, where true religion holds 
a man, there is safety and eternal life. 

TABLE FOR BREAD. 

The next thing to be made was a table of like 

wood with gold and rings, but it would have 

a crown or raised edge, and there 

Verses 23-30. 

were to be made dishes, spoons, 
flagons and bowls for appropriate uses ; but the 

1 Psalm cxxxii. 14. 2 Isaiah lvii. 15. 



THE LAMP. 237 



chief use of the table was to afford a place for 
the shewbread, twelve small circular loaves re- 
newed each week. This bread represented spiri- 
tual service which plants the truth of life, 
nurtures it, reaps it, and carries it through to 
the good on which the soul is fed. Hence the 
Lord in His pure love of souls is called the " liv- 
ing Bread " ; l and He gave the bread and said, 
"Take, eat, this is my body, given for you." 2 

THE LAMP. 

Then came the candlestick of gold, shaped like 

a tree of one stem and six brandies, three on 

either side, having little caplike 

Verses 31-40. 

lamps at the end of each, like 
almond-blossoms ; and here is the symbol of the 
mind luminous with revered truth before the 
Lord. A mind unsteady in its care for truth is 
a foolish virgin whose lamp goes out before the 
bridegroom comes, but a mind with undimmed 

1 John vi. 51. 2 Matthew xxvi. 26; Luke xxii. 19. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 
Verses 1-6. 



238 EXODUS, XXVI. 

love of truth has its lamp burning and goes in to 
the wedding of heaven. 1 It is a " burning and 
a shining light," and all the true hearted rejoice 
in it. 2 

CURTAINS OF THE TENT. 

These three articles of furniture are first 
spoken of, as the three essentials, the soul of 
the rest ; but now comes the de- 
scription of the tent itself, or the 
dwelling as it was afterwards correctly called 
because in it God would dwell with Israel. 
Ten curtains must be made of the dyed material, 
each curtain a long straight strip six feet wide, 
and each furnished along its sides with loops 
and clasps so that one could be closely joined 
with another. i Ten of these curtains joined 
would make a cloth of about sixty feet by forty- 
two. This would be, so to speak, the canvas, 
the canopy of the tent. 

. : Matthew xxv. 10. 2 John v. 35. 



BOARDS AND BARS. 239 

Another set of curtains would be of goats' 

hair, nearly black, like the Bedouin tents in use 

to-day ; but this would not form 

Verses 7-14. 

another tent, but a covering and 
protection over the colored canopy. These cur- 
tains would be eleven instead of ten, and a yard 
longer to make the protection more perfect. 
They would be joined like the first, and the extra 
width would hang over the back as a kind of store- 
room. Over this again would go skins. 

BOARDS AND BARS. 

But what would hold up these cloths and 

skins ? What would take the place of the wall 

of stones or reeds running on three 

Verses 15-30. 

sides of a tent now ? Boards would 
take this place, boards of wood, with tenons 
below to so fit into silver sockets that each 
socket with two holes would support a part of 
two boards and thus join them. There would be 
no boards on the east end, but on the other sides 
the boards would stand up and be fastened at 



240 EXODUS, XXVI. 

the two cornel's with rings, making a firm wall. 
Along the boards outside three staves would run, 
the object being to fix the boards more firmly. 
Here again gold would be used, and would repre- 
sent the supreme preciousness of the religious 
interests of the soul. 

VEILS AND HANGINGS. 

This room so formed would be forty-five feet 

by fifteen, and would be divided into two rooms, 

the western square, the eastern two 

Verses 31-37. 

squares. The division would be 
made by a veil of embroidered work hanging 
upon four pillars standing also in sockets of silver 
and having hooks of gold for the veil. And thou 
shalt hang up the veil under the clasps, and shall 
bring in thither within the veil the ark of the 
testimony ; and the veil shall divide between the 
holy place and the most holy. In that inmost 
room there must be nothing but the ark. The 
command proceeded that in the outer room the 
candlestick should be placed on the south side 



ALTAR FOR SACRIFICES. 



and the table of bread on the north. Then, to 
complete this outer room, a hanging would be 
set up at the entrance supported on five pillars in 
sockets of copper. 

ALTAR FOR SACRIFICES. 

In front of the tent would stand the altar of 
burnt offering, also of wood, but overlaid outside 
chapter xxvii. with copper, and having at its 
verses 1-8. corners horns or projecting points. 
Within, a grating of network would allow the 
ashes to fall. Rings and staves were also 
arranged for bearing it. It was quite hollow and 
was a frame for the earth within, thus obeying 
the law of the " altar of earth thou shalt make." z 
To understand this altar, of copper lined with 
wood, to have had no earth within and no con- 
nection with the altar of earth, is an obvious 
error, for in that case it would be ruined by its 
first use. 

1 Chapter xx. 24. 



242 EXODUS, XXVII. 



OUTER COURT. 

Round about the tent and this altar was a 

court formed by linen hung from pillars set in 

sockets of copper, and so placed as to 

Verses 9-19. 

form an inclosure one hundred and 
fifty feet long and seventy-five wide from north 
to south. This court hanging was white, except 
that eastward the entrance portion was colored 
like the inner curtains. It is to be observed that 
copper belonged to this court, but gold to the 
inner rooms, and copper represents a lower and 
more external love than gold, but still good, like 
the love of doing one's daily work well. 

PERPETUAL LIGHT. 

The lamp must be always alight with the 

purest olive oil, and this statute was forever, as 

expressing a soul's unquenchable 

Verses 20, 21. 

purpose to wait on the Lord with 
i( loins girded and lights burning," so that He 



PERPETUAL LIGHT. 243 

might never come and find one in neglectful 
darkness. 1 

Here then is a triple division of court, holy 
and most holy place ; and each has its function — 
the inmost to contain the ark and mercy-seat, the 
holy to contain the table and lamp (and also the 
small incense altar of gold described in Chapter 
xxx.), and the court to contain the altar of 
sacrifices. These divisions represent the three 
planes of true soul-life — the celestial with its 
love of the Lord, the spiritual with its thoughtful 
neighborliness, and the natural with its obedience 
to duty. Wisdom, intelligence, knowledge, ex- 
press these distinctions. Gold, silver and copper 
correspond to them. The head, the body and the 
limbs also represent them. And so do the olive, 
vine and fig of the Bible ; the Canaan, Assyria 
and Egypt of the Old Testament ; and the Judea, 
Samaria and Galilee of the New Testament. 
Israel's tent of worship is humanity consecrated, 

1 Luke xii. 35, 36. 



244 EXODUS, XX VI II. 

it is an eternal symbol seen in heaven where 
the ancient peoples are. 

When this symbolism is fulfilled in man the 
saying comes true that " the tabernacle of God is 
with men, and He will dwell with them, and they 
shall be His people, and God shall be with them 
and be their God." r The apostles saw to a 
degree this meaning and spoke of men as 
" temples of the living God"; 2 and this no 
doubt came to them from the teaching of the 
Lord when He " spake of the temple of His 
body," 3 "the greater and more perfect taber- 
nacle not made with hands," 4 in which "dwelt 
the fulness of the Godhead bodily." 5 

PRIESTLY GARMENTS. 

The tabernacle of Israel was a tent made in 

every way significant of worship, of a life turned 

chapter t0 ^he Lord and devoted to His 

xxvin. service. Thus it stood in the 



1 Rkvelation xxi. 3. 2 2 Corinthians vi. 16. 3 John 
ii. 21. 4 Hebrews ix. 11. 5 Colossians ii. 9. 



PRIESTLY GARMENTS. 245 

centre of the camp, regarded as peculiarly the 
abode of God. The rites of worship to be 
performed were likewise significant and were 
prescribed to the minutest detail. So of the 
priests, and especially of the high priest, every- 
thing was precisely told as to garments and 
adornments. Again every true life is repre- 
sented, for it is "a holy priesthood offering up 
spiritual sacrifices." ' 

Aaron and his sons were to be the priests. 

Aaron has appeared all along as the brother and 

constant assistant of Moses. He 

Verse 1. 

spoke for him to Pharaoh. He 
governed the people while Moses was in the 
mount. His permanent duty, when the national 
representative church should be established, 
would not be so much that of lieutenant as the 
distinct function of high priest, while Moses 
would continue as judge and ruler. Moses, as 
has been shown, stands for the written Word 

1 1 Peter ii. 5. 



246 EXODUS, XXVIII. 

of God and for the law of God leading man by 
the conscience ; and his brother Aaron, warmer 
in temperament and more near to the people, 
stands for that truth applied to life, the practical 
interpretation of truth, truth serving and so 
worshipping God. Kingship is the intellectual 
side of righteousness, the priesthood is its affec- 
tional side. Aaron and his sons and descendants 
therefore become the priests of Israel and repre- 
sent love serving the Lord. 

They must have holy garments for glory and 

for beauty, so that the priests can minister in the 

priests office. The garments typify 

Verses 2-4. 

the qualities of a religious life, its 
enveloping truths or principles of service to God 
and so to man. These garments were of the 

same materials as the inner curtains 

Verse 5. 

of the tent, for spiritual truth is 
one, like the inner garment of the Lord, " woven 
without seam from the top throughout." * 

1 John xix. 23. 



PRIESTLY GARMENTS. 247 

The first garment described is the ephod, or 

waistcoat as it may be called, made of the 

colored cloth with slioulderpieces 

Verses 6-12. 

above and a girdle below. On each 
shoulderpiece a precious stone was to be set and 
engraved with six names of tribes. Aaron shall 
bear their names before the Lord upon his two 
shoulders for a memorial. 

Moreover on the front of this ephod was a 

breastplate, a piece of the cloth set w T ith twelve 

stones, four rows of three stones in 

Verses 13-29. 

each row, and securely attached to 
the ephod by rings and cJiains of gold. Also 
in each stone was the name of a tribe of Israel ; 
and so again Aaron shall bear the names of the 
children of Israel in the breastplate of judgment 
upon his lie art zvhen lie goetJi in unto the holy 
place for a memorial before the Lord continually. 
What means the precious stone ? It is not 
opaque, a truth of natural law seen only as law, 
like an axiom in mathematics ; it is rather a law 
seen through, luminous in the mind with the 



2 4-8 EXODUS, XXVIII. 

light of intelligence seeing its Divine motive. 
It is not law for the servant, it is law for the 
friend l of the Lord. " In Thy light we sec 
light." 2 This difference is shown in the Ser- 
mon on the Mount, not destroying the law but 
fulfilling it, when "ye have heard that it was 
said to them of old time" becomes "but I say 
unto you." 3 These stones cannot all be identi- 
fied beyond question, but the four rows no doubt 
conformed to the general scheme of color, pass- 
ing from red to white through blue, and so 
representing all aspects of righteousness and 
in their unity all truths of life worn upon the 
heart as dear to the soul, and having twelve 
names of tribes to signify the completeness of 
one's sanctification. For truths inscribed upon 
the heart of man are stones worn on the breast- 
plate in perpetual memorial, meaning in ever- 
lasting remembrance. 



1 John xv. 14, 15. 2 Psalm xxxvi. 9. 3 Matthew v. 22,28, 

34* 39- 



PRIESTLY GARMENTS. 249 

The stones are called Urim a?id Thiimmim, 

"lights and perfections," and these by their 

effulgence or the reverse were the 

Verse 30. 

means of telling whether the Lord 
was favorable to a proposed act or unfavorable. 1 
When the truths of life gleam in the mind with 
the warm light of loving perception, man can 
act from God, but otherwise he acts from self, 
and fails. 

The robe or general garment is next men- 
tioned in the order of life's consecration. It 

was of blue, entire, so that, in put- 

Verses 31-35. 

ting it on, the head was put through 
an opening with embroidered edge ; and it had 
a fringe at bottom bearing alternately a golden 
bell and a pomegranate, so that the sound of 
Aaron's steps would be heard when he goetli in 
and when he covieth out that lie die not. The 
very garment must sing praise. Down from 
head to foot it must go to represent a life 

1 Numbers xxvii. 21 ; 1 Samuel xxviii. 6. 



250 EXODUS, XXVIII. 

wholly given to the Lord, even the border of 
commercial and social relations being attuned 
to harmony with the Divine purposes, so that 
no death or spiritual decay can befall. The 
orange-red fruit of the pomegranate, full of 
seeds, represents a fruitful natural life adding 
to the common good from day to-day. 

This for the skirt, but the head had its own 

ornament. Thou shalt make a plate of pure 

gold, and grave tpon it, Holiness 

Verses 36-38. 

to the Lord. And thou shalt put it 
on a lace of blue, and it shall be upon the tur- 
ban, upon the forefront. And it shall be upon 
Aaron s forehead. The meaning is manifest. 
The forehead stands for the mind, and the 
mind controls the life. "His name shall be in 
their foreheads," ' means that love of the Lord 
is the ruling motive. So here, with this fillet 
upon his forehead Aaron represents sanctified 
manhood, that is, true priesthood. And it is 

1 Revelation xxii. 4. 



PRIESTLY GARMENTS. 



added that thus Aaron shall bear the iniquity 
of holy things, which is to take away unclean- 
ness and unworthiness of self, and in their 
stead to wear the pure gold of heaven-descended 
consecration. 

Mention is then made of a coat of fine linen. 

This is the under garment, which was white. 

Aaron's sons had this, but not the 

Verses 39~43- 

colored robe. All had also white 
coverings for the thighs. This linen is the sym- 
bol of purity. " Be ye clean that bear the 
vessels of the Lord." ' Garments in heaven 
were seen to be white because they that wore 
them had washed them in the blood of the 
Lamb, 2 through looking unto Him and purify- 
ing themselves in His truth, " for the fine linen 
is the righteousness of saints." 3 



1 Isaiah lii. n. 2 Revelation vii. 14. l Ibid., xix. 8. 



2 52 EXODUS, XXIX. 



CONSECRATION OF PRIESTS. 

The priests must be solemnly inducted into 
office with anointing and sacrifices. Moses, 
chapter xxix w h en he should have returned 

verses i-i 4 . tQ the p eop i e , and when the tent 

of meeting had been constructed, must bring to 
the altar a bullock, two rams, and unleavened 
bread in which was olive oil Then Aaron and 
his sons, being washed, must be clothed in their 
robes of office and be anointed with oil Thus 
would they be the priests by a perpetual statute. 
The bullock being then killed, its blood must 
touch the horns of the altar and be poured out 
at the base, while the fat would be burned upon 
the altar. But instead of the flesh being eaten, 
it must be burned outside of the camp, to typify 
the natural affections, the fleshly appetites, which 
are to be put away before one is wholly in the 
service of the Lord. So far as one's life is by 
nature evil and selfish it can serve the Lord 
only with self-denial. The love of service is the 



CONSECRATION OF PRIESTS. 253 

oil of anointing for all good work. So little by 
little does a soul induct itself into its high des- 
tiny of perpetual priesthood, and rests not day 
nor night, saying, " Holy, Holy, Holy is the 
Lord God Almighty." T 

As the ceremony was to proceed, one of the 

rams would then be killed and wholly consumed 

on the altar. This betokens progress in good 

of life. The bullock is burned out- 

Verses 15-18. 

side as unworthy, a sin-offering ; the 
ram is burned upon the altar, a sweet savour, an 

offering made by fire unto the Lord. Men offer 
by fire when they serve the Lord with ardent 
love. This ram stands for the innocence of sin- 
less service, accepted of the Lord because it seeks 
to do His will. 

Now the third and final step. The other ram 

would be killed, Aaron and his sons laying their 

hands upon its head as before, to 

Verses 19-25. 

represent in a soul that it is his 
own act by which he consecrates his all to God's 

1 Revelation iv. 8. 



254 EXODUS, XXIX. 



service. Some of the blood must touch ear and 
thumb and toe to signify every part of the being 
united in love ; and then the fat portions would 
be put, with the right shoulder and some of the 
bread, upon the hands of Aaron and his sons, 
who would wave them before the Lord, after 
which they would be burned upon the altar. 
This waving or moving to and fro of the offering 
signifies active life, the earnest and not listless 
purpose. David ran to meet Goliath, 1 he danced 
and leaped before the ark in Jerusalem. 2 

Then came the feast, sign of abundant heav- 
enly reward of service, faithful over a few things 
and therefore entering into the joy 

Verses 26-35. 

of its Lord. 3 Moses first would 
have the breast, Aaron and his sons the rest. 
Every sacrifice in Israel was to end in a feast, 
for so does good life weep with its seed sowing, 
and come again rejoicing, bringing its sheaves. 4 
And thus Aaron and his sons, having done all 



1 1 Samuel xvii. 48. 2 2 Samuel vi. 16. 3 Matthew xxv. 23. 
4 Psalm cxxvi. 6. 



1 



DAILY SACRIFICES. 



that was theirs to do, would eat, but a stranger 
should not eat thereof, because that means unpre- 
paredness and profanation. Nothing must be 
kept until the next day, but the fragments must 
be burned, to represent devotion of life to the 
Lord rather than keeping aught back for self. 
By all this the altar itself would be made holy, 
and whatever touched it would be holy, for a 
church has no holiness save from fervent prayer 
and praise therein. 

DAILY SACRIFICES. 

At this point was given the law of daily sac- 
rifice, a lamb morning and evening, with fine flour 

and beaten oil and a little wine; 

Verses 36-46. 

for not the priests only, but all the 
people must have rites significant of innocent 
purpose. And so doing in mornings of hope 
and evenings of anxiety, men are borne up 
day unto day from wickedness. The Lord said, 
/ will dzi ] ell among them, and will be their God. 
And they shall know that I am the Lord their 



256 EXODUS, XXX. 



God, who brought them forth out of the land of 
Egypt that I may dwell among them ; I am the 
Lord their God. And so He becomes the Re- 
deemer from bondage to the flesh more and 
more fully with every lamb slain, with every 
fresh effort to do right. So to the Lord Jesus 
at last Thomas, seeing that He had been saved 
from disbelief, cried out, " My Lord and my 
God ! " ' 

ALTAR FOR INCENSE. 

It is remarkable that at this place, after all 

is apparently said about tabernacle and priests, 

chapter xxx there is given a description of a 

verses x-10. pi ec e of furniture for the tent not 
before mentioned, namely, the altar of incense. 
The critic naturally declares this passage out of 
place, and would transfer it to Chapter xxv., 
but calmer thought sees that the description is 
reserved until the use is also appropriately de- 
fined, that it therefore properly heads a distinct 
section of Exodus. 

1 John xx. 28. 



ALTAR FOR INCENSE. 257 

The incense altar was made of acacia wood, 
one cubit square and two high. It had its crown- 
ing ledge and its horns and its rings and its 
staves, all overlaid with gold. Its place would 
be in the holy immediately before the most 
holy. A little incense of sweet spices must be 
burned upon it every morning and evening by 
means of a coal from the altar outside. Nothing 
must be offered on it but the prescribed incense, 
and upon it Aaron would atone for Israel. This 
beautiful little altar, sending up its aromatic 
smoke in the tent, completes the thought of 
all these representative rites. It means the 
sweetness and gladness and pervasiveness of 
religion. The odours from the golden vials 
were the "prayers of saints." 1 An angel with 
a " golden censer offered much incense with 
the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar, 
and the smoke of the incense with the prayers 
of the saints ascended up before God." 2 So 

Revelation v. 8. 2 Ibid., viii. 3, 4. 



258 EXODUS, XXX. 

does a good life crown its work ; it confesses its 
sins, it burns its light of faith continually, it 
spreads its best bread before the Lord, but to 
complete all it sets up its incense altar, and 
its prayers of faith and gratitude "go forth as 
incense." x And so it atones or makes itself 
one with God forever ; as Zacharias burned the 
incense, and an angel at the right side of the 
altar said, " Fear not, Zacharias ; thou shalt 
have joy and gladness ; thy supplication is 
heard." 2 

LAW OF THE CENSUS. 

Another unexpected passage is the law of the 
census that every man should give to the sanc- 
tuary half a shekel of silver. They 

Verses 11-16. 

had no coins and reckoned metals 
by weight. The connection with the altar is 
in the spiritual meaning, for nothing so detracts 
from worship and violates its laws as self-appre- 

1 Psalm cxli. 2. 2 Luke i. 13, 14. 



THE LAYER, 259 



ciation, and this is remedied by counting one's 
powers, one's twenty years of preparedness for 
war against sin, and saying, " they are the 
Lord's." The silver given to the Lord is the 
acknowledgment that all is His that is good in 
man. This is also atonement, like the incense 
burned; thus the two are joined here. 

THE LAVER. 

The laver of copper is not described as to its 

form, but its use is told to be the washing of 

the priests' hands and feet. It stood 

Verses 17-21. 

between the tent and the large altar, 
and tradition says, on the south side. The 
need of frequent washings after slaying animals 
is plain, and obviously all true worship and 
service call for cleanness of motive and life. 
"Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and 
cleanse me from my sin : then shalt thou be 
pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, then 
shall they offer bullocks upon Thine altar." 1 

1 Psalm li. 2, 19. 



260 EXODUS, XXX. 



OIL AND INCENSE. 

The composition of the anointing oil and the 

incense is then given, and it appears that great 

care was to be used, and no one 

Verses 22-33. 

should ever so compound oil or 
incense for any other purpose, or he must die. 
For the oil, essences of myrrh and sweet inner 
barks were used with olive oil, making a fragrant 
ointment with which the priests and every part 
of the sacred tent and furniture were to be 
anointed. These growing plants stand for the 
growth of good principles of life, and the olive 
oil which united them stands for love of the 
Lord, healing spiritual hurts and inducing the 
soul to service. Everything related to the re- 
ligious life must have this quality, or it is false 
and hypocritical. 

So of the incense. Aromatic herbs should be 

taken, and beaten to a fine powder, and mingled 

with salt. This ingredient repre- 

Verses 34-38. 

sents the preserving power of the 
love of truth — spiritual thirst — and the spices 



INSPIRED WORKMEN. 261 

represent prayers fragrant to the Lord because 
they seek only for what He can give. It is con- 
secrated incense, not to be otherwise used, for 
one cannot serve God and mammon. 1 

INSPIRED WORKMEN. 

Moses was not left to wonder how so many 
arts as would be needed for making all these 
chapter xxxi things could be found among his 

verses i-n. unskilled people. The Lord said 
that He had filled Bezaleel of Judah with the 
spirit of God in all cunning work in gold, silver 
and copper, in cutting gems and carving wood, and 
in weaving and embroidery, in making the 
priests' garments and compounding the oil and 
incense. With Bezaleel would be joined Aholiab 
of Dan. It is clear that the view which Moses 
had had would not enable him to construct 
every thing from memory, though he could un- 
doubtedly declare in the end if his vision was 

1 Luke xvi. 13. 



262 EXODUS, XXXI. 

correctly reproduced. The Israelite work people 
could of course do nothing without guidance, 
and thus the need of inspiration was absolute. 
Two men were named as destined to receive this 
gift, one of Judah, the other of Dan. The for- 
mer, Bezaleel, seems to have done the work in 
metal and gems, the other in cloth and wood 
under the control of Bezaleel. Judah was the 
great tribe which led the march, 1 which received 
the largest inheritance, and to which belonged 
the line of kings. Dan on the other hand was 
at the rear in march, received but did not hold 
a much smaller inheritance, and was finally not 
counted among the tribes, 2 while Judah was 
always first. Thus between the extremes all 
the wisehearted were included. Moreover the 
duality of good and truth, of charity and faith, 
comes in here, for Judah — " praise the Lord " — 
represents those who love the Lord, and Dan — 
" judge " — represents those who look to the 

1 Numbers ii. 3, 9. 2 Revelation vii. 5-8. 



THE SABBATH. 263 



Lord with faith in His justice. Therefore he 
of Judah takes the lead and he of Dan follows, 
and he of Judah does the more interior work but 
he of Dan the more exterior. 

THE SABBATH. 

The final word to Moses ere he left the mount 
was as to the sabbath to be kept as a sign be- 
tween God and the children of Israel 

Verses 12-17. 

forever. And it is a sign that men 
know God and mean to serve Him, but neglect 
of the sabbath is a sign of life for self and the 
world only. It is a promise also of the life to 
come when the six days of tribulation and forma- 
tive probation are over, and the rest from such 
labors is given. This is the meaning of the words 
that on the seventh day God rested and was 
refreshed, for man no longer strives against His 
providence. 



264 EXODUS, XXXI. 



TABLETS OF THE LAW. 

So Moses turned to descend, having in his 

hand two tables of testimony, tables of stone, 

written with the finger of God. It 

Verse 18. 

is of no profit to inquire how the 
few Hebrew words were written here, or how 
the warning was written on Belshazzar's wall. 1 
The simple precepts without explanatory sen- 
tences were probably written, and those as to 
God belonged to one tablet and those as to man 
to the other. They would be the very heart 
of Israel's tabernacle and rites ; but no, Israel 
would never have these stones, and this would 
be due to nothing but its own sins, for already 
as long afterward Israel had rejected its Saviour. 



Daniel v. 5. 



APOSTASY. 2 65 



APOSTASY. 

When Peter boasted that he would not deny 

his Master although others might, and when ere 

chapter l° n g h e declared his denial with sol- 

xxxii. emn Q^h^ hg showed the national 

weakness of bold avowal and cowardly recanta- 
tion ; and as His Lord was not deceived in Peter, 
but predicted his apostacy, so the quality of 
Israel itself was foreseen, and all the revelation 
made to it was adapted to a perverse race, which 
nevertheless might embody in outward rites a 
pure religion, if it would obey and abide by the 
statutes given at Sinai. Therefore, after being 
fully prepared, Moses was descending to the 
people, bearing as the token of the covenant two 
tablets of stone with the ten laws. 

But Israel had almost at once turned from 

Moses and Aaron when Pharaoh increased the 

burdens ; * it had rebuked them 

Verse 1. 

when pursued at the Red Sea; 2 

1 Chapter v. 21. 2 Chapter xiv. 1 1. 



266 EXODUS, XXXII. 

it had charged them with the purpose to kill 
all by starvation ; x it had again impeached them 
in thirst ; 2 and what were its promises before the 
mount, 3 but so many assertions of the natural 
man that he will do only right, when he is as 
" unstable as water," 4 and his "words are ini- 
quity and deceit?" 5 While Moses delayed to 
come down, the awe of the people wore away ; 
and they gatliered themselves together unto Aaron, 
and said, Up, make tis gods which shall go before 
its; for as for this Moses, the man that brought 
us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not 
what is become of him. Fear led to disbelief, 
and disbelief to rejection of their God. Judas 
Iscariot was so moved toward his Master. To 
make gods for oneself is to forsake high duty 
and be governed by low, selfish aims. When 
these go before men, they stumble and fall, 6 
being blind led of the blind. 7 



1 Chapter xvi. 3. 2 Chapter xvii. 3. 3 Chapter xix. 8; xxiv. 
3, 7. 4 Genesis xlix. 4. 5 Psalm xxxvi. 3. b Daniel xi. 19. 
7 Matthew xv. 14. 



APOSTASY. 267 



Aaron did not resist. He was not yet high 

priest. When doctrine is cut off from Scripture, 

as it is with the dogmas of immacu- 

Verses 2-4. 

late conception or papal infallibility, 
it obeys man, not God. Aaron told them to 
break off their earrings and bring them to him, 
and they did so. As the eye is the organ of 
understanding and the hand of power, so the 
ear corresponds to obedience, The gold in their 
ears had stood for the good love of obedience, 
but breaking off this gold with this purpose at 
once indicated disobedience, and the divinity of 
it was a molten calf. 

Because Egypt as the type of natural and 
sensual life worshipped Apis, the bull, and be- 
cause the consecration of the priests would 
require a bullock sacrificed before the altar but 
burned outside of the camp, 1 to represent fleshly 
appetites put away, therefore this molten calf or 
young bull is a perfect type of the base, Egyp- 
tian life for which the regenerating soul still 

1 Chapter xxix. 14 



268 EXODUS, XXX II. 



longs, even in the very forefront of the mount 
of God. And Aaron said, These be thy gods, O 
Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of 
Egypt. So does bestial man fashion a thing 
with the graving tool of his own folly and set 
up the self-deception as his god, to which he 
owes his life. It is the false witness x before 
Caiaphas traducing the Saviour, and accepted 
in order that He might be crucified who was 
their Good Shepherd. 

Aaron built an altar and said, To-morrow 

shall be a feast to the Lord. Yes, a feast of 

flesh and wine and lust. Early in 

Verses 5, 6. 

the morning they brought offerings, 
and then they sat down to eat and drink, and 
rose up to play. As research brings to light 
more fully the unspeakable orgies of idolatry, 
men may see how infernal corruptions may be 
practised in the name of religion when they 
make their own gods and proclaim feasts of 
bestiality. 

1 Matthew xxvi. 60. 



APOSTASY. 269 



In the mount Moses was told what was going 

on below, and the very words which Aaron had 

spoken ; nor was Moses incredulous, 

Verses 7-14. 

for he knew his own heart and that 
of his people. The Divine purpose was to con- 
sume them, and to make of Moses a great nation. 
In their utter unworthiness they would be re- 
jected forever, and the Word of God would go 
into other keeping. But Moses pleaded for 
them that the Lord should abate His anger 
lest Egypt triumph after all, and lest the prom- 
ises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel be 
broken. Then it is said that the Lord repented 
of the evil which He said He would do. In this 
and like interviews Moses appears to be more 
wise and patient than God, and to bring Him 
round from wrath to forbearance. All this is 
the mere appearance. Men believe that they 
move God by prayer, but in reality they move 
themselves, and the ever merciful purpose of 
God finds it way to fulfilment through their 
submission to Him. So here Moses believed 
that he had saved his people from utter destruc- 



270 EXODUS, XXXII. 

tion, he alone to be left alive ; but in reality he 
had humbled himself to bear with them, and 
so in the Divine mercy they can be preserved; 
but true religion would never be theirs. 

PUNISHMENT. 

Moses turned, as one goes from prayer to 

work, "from Jerusalem to Jericho," 1 and went 

down by the ravine at one side, 

Verses 15, 16. 

bearing the tablets, already rejected 
by Israel. They were the work of God, that is, 
they were the truths of Divine order itself, by 
which God drew near to dwell among them. 

Joshua, as they descended but were not yet 
in view of the camp, declared that he heard a 

noise of zvar, and his warrior soul 

Verses 17-20. 

was stirred ; but sadly Moses, al- 
ready told by God, answered that it was not 
war, but revelry. Indeed it was not war, the 
strife of man against sin, but the ribald song 
of the sinner self-deceived and boasting of his 

1 Luke x. 30. 



PUNISHMENT. 2 7 I 



strength. Then came the view. Moses saw 
the calf and the dancing, representing a life 
given up to self-indulgence. His own anger 
burst forth, he hurled the tablets to destruction, 
he cast the idol into the fire, he beat it into 
dust, and strewed it on the water, so that Israel 
must drink it. How terrible is punishment, the 
irresistible outcome of order trampled upon ! 
High privileges forfeited, low pleasures inter- 
rupted, idols cast down and made to enter into 
the life till it loathes its former delights, this is 
the inevitable result of sin without repentance. 
Men drink their idols until, like the lusting of 
Taberah, it comes out at their nostrils and is 
loathsome unto them ; l and " the brook that 
descended out of the mount" 2 is no more clear 
as crystal, but foul with the ashes of the fur- 
nace of passion. 

In his fierce anger Moses turned upon the 

brother who had betrayed him, but Aaron laid all 

the blame upon the people, and he 

Verses 21-24. 

told what they said and did, and of 
1 Numbers xi. 20. 2 Deuteronomy ix. 21. 



272 EXODUS, XXXII. 

his own part he said, / cast it into the fire, and 
there came out this calf. In this weak answer is a 
law of life that, if gold of good love be cast into 
the fire of self indulgence, a vile idol is the 
result. 

The people, drunken and dishonored, represent 

the nature surrendered to sin. Moses stood in 

the gate of the camp, between them 

Verses 25-29. 

and their enemies, and shouted for 
those who were on the Lords side. His own 
tribe of Levi gathered, and he sent them to slay 
the reprobates, of whom three thousand fell. 
This represents the inevitable loss by such 
destructive sin, and it shows the Levite, or what 
in a man repents and obeys the Lord, acting as 
a judge to condemn the unrepentant part. "If 
thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it 
from thee ; it is better for thee to enter into life 
with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be 
cast into hell fire." l It was Levi on one side, 
the tribe of "conjunction" and the future priest- 

1 Matthew xviii. 9. 



I 



PUNISHMENT. 273 



hood, and those who were still rebellious on 
the other — God and mammon, the seed of the 
woman and the seed of the serpent. Moses' 
command to the Levites, Consecrate yourselves 
to-day to the Lord, every man against his son 
and his brother, that He may bestow upon you 
a blessing, precisely describes the law that, 
by resisting the foes of one's own household, 
heavenly strength is gained. " To him that 
overcometh will I give power." x 

On the next day Moses went before the 

Lord, and besought His forgiveness, that He 

would still guard them. If He 

Verses 30-35. 

would not do this, Moses asked 
to be slain, for spiritually speaking Moses is 
slain, the "Word is made of none effect," 2 if 
there be no church going forward under Divine 
guidance. To this prayer the answer was that 
the people would be led, but the Lord said, 
When I visit, I will visit their sin upon them, 
because this sinful, unfaithful life must know 

1 Revelation ii. 26. 2 Mark vi. 13. 



274 EXODUS, XXXIII. 

very many punishments brought on itself. The 
Lord Jesus wept over Jerusalem because it 
must fall by its own iniquity. r 

MOSES' TENT REMOVED. 

After this apostasy the Lord said that the 
promised country was still theirs, and that He 
chapter xxxiii. wou ld drive out its occupants, 

Verses 1-3. j^j. £j e W0U ] C J no t g Q U p [ n ^q 

midst of them, for they were a stiff-necked 
people and would surely endanger themselves 
by their sins. This is to be observed, that 
they had now changed the Divine relation to 
them, so that for their sakes the Lord must 
stand as it were aloof. So was it when Phari- 
sees with Sadducees came to demand a sign of 
the Lord, "and He left them and departed/' 2 

The people were grieved, a sad day followed 

one of reckless joy, and no man did put on 

him his ornaments, for there is no 

Verses 4-6. 

real joy in such a life, whether 
exulting in evil or grieving over its self-in- 

'Hosea xiv. 1. 2 Matthew xvi. 4. 



MOSES' TENT REMOVED. 275 

flicted losses ; and this is better than false 
enjoyment, and therefore they did not resume 
their ornaments, and soon found a good use 
for them. In self-denial is safety for the weak. 
Still further carrying the symbolism of the 
unworthy people, in partial rejection, Moses 
took his tent, and pit died it with- 

Verses 7-11. 

out the camp, afar off, and so 
expressed the separation between God and the 
people ; and thither they must go who sought 
the Lord. The church was not among them. 
They had removed themselves from it, although 
it seemed to remove from them. 

Moses, thus removed, came to a new dignity. 
When he went out to his tent all stood and 
observed hint, representing a mental attitude of 
attention to law. And they saw that the pillar 
of cloud stood over Moses' tent, showing that 
so the Lord was to be made known to them, 
not immediately, but through law. All the 
people rose up and worshipped, every man at 
his tent door, showing regard for God when 
manifested in outward signs in accommodation 



276 EXODUS, XXXIII. 

to fallen humanity. Thus Moses, but not the 
people, was before God, and he turned again 
into the camp, showing continued help for 
them from God through him ; but Joshua 
departed not out of the tent, representing the 
remoter presence of the Lord as the Divine 
love, while the Divine truth, Moses, went and 
came on errands of judgment. If Joshua did 
not abide, the tree would die at the heart. 

SEEING GOD. * 

Shaken by this evidence of weakness if they 

may have no outward form to worship, Moses 

prays that he may see God : Shew 

Verses 12-23. 

me, I pray Thee, Thy glory. He 
has been in the mount, and he has come 
again, only to find the people falling away to 
an idol, and he feels that for himself and them 
he must see God. The presence in the cloud 
is sure, but it is not like seeing eye to eye, 
it is not enough. If he could see God, he 
would be satisfied that the people had been 
indeed chosen. This is man's craving for a 



SEEING GOD. 277 



knowledge of God, of destiny, of immortality, 
which will remove all doubt as he believes. It 
is Philip saying, "Show us the Father, and it 
sufficeth us." 1 But affection is cognitive, as 
one has said ; to draw near to God is to know 
Him; and one cannot say, " Lo here! or Lo 
there ! " 2 Moses must go up again, and place 
himself in a cleft of the rock and be covered 
with the Divine hand while the Lord passed 
by; and then the hand would be taken away, 
and He would see the back, but not the face. 
Here is the fact of every life's experience. 
If it will go into the mount, will rise to the 
best motive, and enter the cleft of the rock, 
the stronghold of the truth, and let the Di- 
vine hand of protection be placed on it, then 
as the days go it shall see the Lord's love in 
every passing experience. Xot as life comes 
can its mercy be seen, but looked at after- 
wards it will be plain that the Lord was in 
it all. And blessed is he who knows this 



1 John xiv. S. 2 Luke xvii. 21. 



278 EXODUS, XXXIV. 

truth, so that he can trust the Lord laying 
upon him a hand of discipline, well knowing 
that in due time the mercy of it all will be 
seen, like the bow in the cloud after the 
rain. 

We hush our children's laughter 

When sunset hues grow pale ; 
Then, in the silence after, 

They hear the nightingale. 1 

EPIPHANY AND COVENANT. 

With two tablets of his own making, repre- 
senting the changed relation now of a more 
chapter xxxiv external quality, Moses went 
verses 1-7. U p j nto ^q mount early in the 

morning, the time significant of pure purpose ; 
and there the Lord passed by before him, and 
a voice proclaimed Him full of compassion and 
gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy 
and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiv- 
ijig iniquity and transgression and sin, not clear- 
ing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of fathers 

1 F. R. Havergal. - 



EPIPHANY AND COVENANT. 279 

upon children to the third and fourtli generation. 
In this is the self-revelation of God. As to 
those who love His order, He is helpful and 
wonderfully kind. As to those who oppose His 
order, He declares that real harm results, and 
to a degree descends ; for, while sin cannot be 
inherited, the imperfection due to evil must be, 
and can only be eradicated by regeneration. 
It is exactly the same Divine quality which 
was manifested in and by the Lord Jesus, 
merciful to sinners, yet not failing to give 
warning against sin. He was the friend of 
publicans repentant, but saw only woes for 
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. x 

Overwhelmed with this epiphany, Moses made 
haste, and bowed his head, and worshipped, pray- 
ing that the Lord would go with 

Verses 8, 9. 

them — take us for Thine inherit- 
ance. This prayer no doubt sprang from the 
hope that the Lord would be especially favor- 
able to them and equally hostile to all others. 

1 Matthew xxiii. 13-15, 23, 25, 27, 29. 



EXODUS, XXXIV. 



The thought of a God partial to a race or a 
sect still prevails ; but it is to be observed that 
no answer was made to this prayer except to 
repeat the covenant, for the only limits of the 
Divine care are set by men, and all who do 
the Lord's will are blessed. In summary the 
covenant required no dallying with 

Verses 10-26. 

idolators, destroying all idols, re- 
fraining from foreign marriages, keeping the 
three feasts, redeeming the firstborn, and other 
law r s already given. 

Moses, during his second stay of forty days 
in the mount, himself wrote the ten words on 

the tablets ; and this suggests how 

Verses 27, 28. 

closely adapted to Israel and so to 
fallen humanity is the whole Old Testament, 
so that some despise it, but it is inwardly Di- 
vine. If the casket must be earthly, the jewels 
within are heavenly. In their spiritual meaning 
both the Testaments put off the garments of 
this world and are seen in raiment white and 
dazzling. 1 



1 Luke ix. 29. 



THE SHINING FACE. 



THE SHINING FACE. 

When Moses returned to Israel there was 

this time upon his face no black cloud of wrath 

and disappointment, but the skin 

Verses 29-35 

of his face shone. The people saw 
it and were afraid to come nigh y but he called 
to them and told them all that the Lord had 
spoken. Then he covered his face with a veil, 
but he took this off when He spoke before the 
Lord. Here is the law of revelation. It must 
be veiled to common eyes, veiled in history 
and parable and psalm, or else it cannot reach 
them ; but, seen with the eyes of the spirit, it 
shines in dory. When the Lord dwelt in the 
flesh there was no beauty that men should 
desire Him, 1 but in His risen glory His face 
did shine as the sun; 2 and the promise is now 
fulfilled, "they shall see His face." 3 



1 Isaiah liii. 2. 2 Revelation i. 16. z Ibid., xxii. 4. 



282 EXODUS, XXXIX. 

THE WORK OF CONSTRUCTION. 

chapter xxxv The remainder of Exodus 
verses 1-19 shows the performance of com- 

verses 20-29. mands, the call for offerings, 

the ready contribution of every- 

verses 30-35. thing needed, the work of Beza- 

chapter xxxvi. leel and Aholiab, the restraint 

of the people from bringing 

more than was required, the 
verses 8-19. making of curtains and cover- 

verses 20-38. ings, the fashioning of the 

boards and pillars ; and then 

chapter xxxvii. the furniture was made, the 

verses 1-29. ar ^ table, lamp, and incense 

altar, the ointment and incense, 

chapter xxxviii. the altar for burnt offerings, 
verses 1-23. tne ] aver an( j t h e hangings of 

verses 24-31. the court ; the gold, silver and 

chapter xxxix. C0 PP er were weighed and util- 

versesi-31. ized ; and then came the priestly 

garments. Thus zvas finished all the work, and 



TABERXACLE ERECTED. 283 

they brought it all to Moses, and he saw it all, 
Verses 32-43. and blessed them. 

TABERNACLE ERECTED. 

They put it all up on the first day of the 
first month. They had been a year out of 

CHAPTER XL. E €YP t * ud h * lf a )' ear lu tMs 

Verses 1-33. WQrk The first day Q f firgt mont h 

is a new beginning, a new era in the life of a 
man. The past is closed, the door is opened 
to a better life. So with Israel, its organized 
ecclesiastical life begins here. Everything was 
minutely told, and everything was exactly done. 
So Moses finished the work y as the Lord said, 
"It is finished," 1 since His body was taber- 
nacle and temple. 

Then the glory filled the Tabernacle, and there 
it rested, leading on or causing to rest through- 
out all their journeys ; and what other guidance 
is there than " the light that lighteth every 
man that cometh into the world ? " 2 

1 Johx xix. 30. 2 John i. 9. 



284 EXODUS, XL. 



The Book of Exodus is thus seen to be the 
story of escape from bondage to the flesh, of 
human weakness causing sad hours, but of the 
Divine mercy in all and through all ; until at 
last the soul, made a Bethel of worship, a habi- 
tation of the Mighty One of Jacob, 1 is prepared 
to take up its victorious progress, to leave its 
mountain of rest, and go forth into the plain 
of discipline, and on to the Promised Land, 
chastened as it goes ; but at last planting its 
tabernacle in Shiloh, the place and state of 
eternal peace in the Lord. 



1 Psalm cxxxii. 5. 



INDEX. 



Aaron, representation, 77; 

promised to Moses, 79 ; 

meets with Moses, 87 ; 

genealogy, 103; at Rephi- 

dim, 196; high priest, 

245 ; robes, 249 ; makes 

idol, 267. 
Altar, of earth, 217; at 

Sinai, 227; of sacrifice, 

241; of incense. 256; of 

idol, 268. 
Amalek, 194, 199. 
Ark, of Moses, 38, 42, 236; 

of covenant, 234. 
Assyria, 7. 

Bezaleel axd Aholiab, 

261. 
Bible Lands, 3. 
Boards, 239. 
Boils, 123. 
Breastplate, 247. 
Bricks, 94. 
Bush, burning, 62. 

Census, 258. 
Circumcision, 86, 147. 
Conscience, 40. 



Court. 242. 
Curtains, 238. 

Darkness, 127. 
Decalogue, 215, 280. 
Dragon, Rev. xii., 32. 

Egypt, 4, 21 ; oppression of, 
25; plots of, 28; princess 
of, 39; jewels of, 69, 131, 
143: demand by Moses, 
92 ; refusal, 93 ; plagues, 
1 10; signs, hi; magi- 
cians, in, 119, 124; water 
to blood, 114; frogs, 116; 
lice, 119; flies, 120; mur- 
rain, 123; boils, 123: hail, 
124: locusts, 126; dark- 
ness, 127; sons slain, 130; 
submission, 141 : pursuit, 
160; engulfed, 167. 

Elim, 176. 

Ephod, 247. 

Etham, 156, 158. 

Exodus, Book of, 20, 23. 

Fifteen, 178. 



(285) 



>86 



INDEX. 



Firstborn, of Egypt, 130; 
of Moses, 86; of Israel, 
149. 

Flies, 120. 

Forty, 46, 53, 107, 185, 

232. 
Frogs, 116. 

Gershom, 60. 
Good and Evil, 90. 
Goshen, 38, 144. 

Hail, 124. 

Heart hardened, 84, no. 

Herod, 30, 43. 

Horeb, see Sinai. 

Hornet, 225. 

Hur, 196. 

Hyssop, 140. 

Idolatry, 215. 

Incense, 257, 260. 

Isaiah, xix., 1 7. 

Israel, 10; increase, 25, 27 
31 ; children, 29; despair 
98, 162; sees signs, 88 
land of promise, 1 1 ; pass 
over, 134; march, 143 
numbers, 145; sojourn 
length of, 146; firstborn 



149; turning, 157; pur- 
sued, 160; song, 170-; 
Marah, 171; murmuring, 
102, 163, 178; thirst, 173, 
189; manna, 181; battle, 
197; at Sinai, 207; apos- 
tasy, 265; blessed, 283; 
feasts, 222. 

Jethro, 202. 

Joseph as type, 22; his 

bones, 155. 
Joshua, 195, 232. 

Lamp, 237, 242. 

Layer, 259. 

Leprosy, 73. 

Levites, 41, 104; slaughter 
by, 272. 

Lice, i 19. 

Locusts, 126. 

Lord, the, tempted, 23, 34, 
55, 172; names, 2, 65; at 
Nazareth, 23, 34; the 
I am, 66; the rock, 192; 
second coming, 89; re- 
penting, meaning of, 269. 

Magicians, i i i, 119. 
Manna, 181. 



INDEX. 



287 



Marah, 171. 

Massah and Meribah. 

193- 

Mercy-Seat, 235. 

MlDIANITES, 52. 56, 200. 

Mid wives, 31. 

Miriam, 44. 

Moses, birth, 36: saved, 
38; Levite, 40; name, 45 : 
smites, 47 ; judges, 50 ; 
flight, $\ ; at well, 57 ; 
shepherd, 54; wife, 59; 
son, 60: at bush, 62; 
reluctant, 64 : signs given, 
71 : speech. 75; rod, 72, 
81, in, 191 ; complaint, 
99: genealogy. 103: at 
Rephidim. 193: at Sinai, 
208; writing, 227: angry, 
271 ; tent moved. 275 ; in 
cleft. 277: face, 281. 

Murrain, 123. 

Oil, anointing, 260. 

O.MER, l86. 

Palestine, 10, 11. 

Passover, 134, 137. 

Patriarchs, representa- 
tion, 22 ; remembered, 61 . 



Peter, 33. 

Pharaoh, see Egypt. 
Philistines, i 52. 
Pillar of Cloud, 156. 

PlTHOM AND RAAMSES, 26. 

Plagues, no. 
Priesthood, garments, 244, 

249: consecration, 252. 
Princess, Egyptian, 39, 43. 

Quails, 180. 

Red Sea, 154, 158, 165, 
166. 

Rephidim, 189, 193. 

Sabbath, 1S3, 216, 263. 

Sacrifices, 22S, 252 ; altar 
of, 241 ; daily, 255. 

Shewbread. 237. 
Sinai. 62, 207. 
Store-Cities, 26. 
succoth, i45. 

SWEDENBORG, iii., 1 6. 

Tabernacle, offerings for, 
233; curtains, 238; 
boards, 239; veils, 240: 
court, 242 ; constructed, 
282. 



INDEX. 



Table, for bread, 236; of Unleavened Bread, 139. 

law, 264. Urim and Thummim, 247, 

Taskmasters, 47, 94. 24 9- 

Ten and Tithe, 186. Veils and Hangings, 240. 

Three, 2, 37, 93. Water to Blood, 74, 1 14. 

Trinity, writers on, 1, 2; Wells, 56. 
in man, 2 ; in God, 2 ; Writing, 227. 
illustrations, 1 3 ; in taber- 
nacle, 243. Zipporah, 59, 86, . 



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